The book club met to discuss Sumana Roy’s How I Became a Tree on 4 April 2022. For our hybrid meeting, I was broadcasting live from the Albuquerque Garden Center with a few people joining me in person (socially distanced, etc) and several people attending via Zoom from different locations throughout the US as well as in Albuquerque. Among the cool things we discussed were Axel Erlandson’s Circus Trees and the city of Melborne’s tree email system. Read more about it all here.

Next up, on Monday 2 May, is Journeys of Trees. Among the interesting bits I’ve read so far is the story of the Emerald Ash Borer, which includes how it came to be called Emerald rather than just, you know, Green. Come join us virtually or in person if you’re in Albuquerque.

The rest of the year will have us reading non-tree books because trees aren’t the only plants although they are very impressive and amazing. And, we really, really, really need to understand that and take care of them.

On March 7 we discussed Gary Paul Nabhan’s Mesquite, an Arboreal Love Affair. How to describe this book? Petey Mesquitey (a nom de plume) wrote in the Foreword: “So you are about to go on a marvelous mesquite journey filled with stories that will sometimes have you belly laughing, sometimes have you thinking maybe you’re working on your thesis, or maybe even striking a chord that makes you quietly weep …” And that really summarizes this book. Read the longer report of our discussion and interesting links here.

The hybrid meeting seems to be working well for us. It’s great that our travelling members plus the occasional new out-of-town friend can join us so easily.

On April 4 we’ll be discussing Sumana Roy’s How I Became a Tree. All I can say is what’s not to like about a book whose opening lines are: “At first it was the underwear. I wanted to become a tree because trees did not wear bras.”