REVIEWS

seeing the rainforest as ‘other’.

We need instead to realise

that human life is intricately

linked with that of the jungle.

Deep Jungle drives home the

irrationality of the exploitation

of its resources in the name

of economic ‘progress’. Worth

buying for the photos alone, this

is a book that should make any

logger think again.

Reviewed by Clare Sutton

Let My People Go Surfi ng:

The Education of a Reluctant

Businessman

Yvon Chouinard

Penguin Press, 2005, £15.48

Yvon Chouinard, the founder

and owner of Patagonia®, a

company renowned for quality,

innovation and environmental

responsibility, has written an

intimate and inspiring story of

his life. If you are constantly

frustrated by the capitalist

attitudes of many business

people and their inability or

unwillingness to see beyond the

profi t margin, you will love this

book. Chouinard, as in other

areas of his life, has embraced

the challenge, and the success

of his pioneering ‘value-led’

approach to business (and to

life itself) and his willingness to

listen to others sets an example

for business and non-business

people alike.

Reviewed by Clare Sutton

The Secret Life of Trees: How

They Live and Why They

Matter

Colin Tudge

Penguin Books, 2005, £20.00

Did you know that there are

trees that warn each other

when giraffes and elephants

are nearby, or that there is a

banyan tree as big as a football

The Harvill Press

ecologist

BOOK CLUB

“The Man Who Planted Trees By Jean Giono

After the midday meal he started sorting more acorns to sow. I must have been very

pressing with my questions, because he answered them. He’d been planting trees in this

wilderness for three years. He’d planted a hundred thousand of them. Out of those, twenty

thousand had come up. Of the twenty thousand he expected to lose half, because of the

rodents or the inexplicable ways of Providence. That still meant 10,000 oaks would grow

where before there had been nothing. But it struck him that this part of the country was

dying for lack of trees, and having nothing much else to do he decided to put things right.

“

It’s a big question, being asked to write about

run again and people return to the abandoned

the most extraordinary person you’ve ever met.

That was the ‘amazing stories of real-life people’

kind of brief presented to Jean Giono by The

Reader’s Digest in the 50s. From such prosaic

beginnings grew an allegorical tale, and legend,

which has inspired so many readers since.

The most extraordinary man Giono ever met

was shepherd Elzeard Bouffi er, who lived a

hermit’s existence in the barren highlands,

where the Alps run into Provence. There the

wind is cruel, the earth dry, the houses deserted.

The few inhabitants are as bitter as the climate.

It is, Giono tells us, oppressive in its desolation.

But Bouffi er is untouched by it all. His life is

spent nurturing and planting seeds from which

trees will grow – from which, by the time of his

death in 1947, a mighty forest will grow. With

the forest, the earth is rejuvenated, streams

towns. Bouffi er is the creator of all this from his

simple habit of planting the seeds he found as

he shepherded his small fl ock of sheep.

Giono’s book has been printed under many

titles; The Man Who Loved Trees is just the

latest. He writes directly in a style reminiscent

of Jorge Luis Borges, and some will fi nd his tale

reminiscent of Paul Coelho. Giono hoped his

book would inspire a worldwide reforestation

movement . His story will make you think again

about how from little acorns mighty things do

indeed grow. It’s only a 30-minute read, but

the poetry in the prose will stay with you for

life. This volume is beautifully illustrated with

woodcuts by Harry Brockway.

As for the legend, that is explained in an

Afterword by Giono’s daughter Aline. You’ll

have to read it to fi nd out what it is.

IT’S EASY TO JOIN THE ECOLOGIST BOOK CLUB... STEP 1: Buy the Book of the Month at our special Book Club price of £4.20 (incl p&p) (RRP £6.55 incl p&p). Tel: 01795 414

963 (Mon–Fri 9:30am–5:30pm), quoting ref: BOOK306. Offer good while stocks last. STEP 2: Take time to read and think

about the Book of the Month. (We allow about 40 days for each month’s Book to be up on the main website’s discussion

forums before archiving it.) STEP 3: Visit www.theecologist.org/bookclub and tell us how the book made you feel. Were you

moved by it? What more would you have liked to have known? Have you started planting trees randomly on your way to

work? STEP 4: Keep your eyes peeled for your April Book Club comment in the June 2006 issue of the magazine – you might

have won the ‘Comment of the Month’ and a £20 book token.

■ March’s Book of the Month . . . Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters is currently online and under discussion.

Visit www.theecologist.org/bookclub for the review and ordering details.

THE ECOLOGIST 059