MOTHER'S DAY SPECIALS! SHOW ME MORE
Daniel Lewis is the Dibner Senior Curator for the History of Science and Technology at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in Southern California, and a writer, college professor, and environmental historian. He writes about the biological sciences and their intersections with extinction, policy, culture, history, politics, law, and literature. Lewis holds the PhD in history and has held post-doctoral fellowships at Oxford, the Smithsonian, the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, and elsewhere. Lewis also serves on the faculty at Caltech, where he teaches environmental humanities courses, as well as at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He is also currently serving a five-year term on the IUCN's Species Survival Commission, as a Bird Red List Authority member. His previous books include Belonging on an Island: Birds, Extinction, and Evolution in Hawai'i and The Feathery Tribe: Robert Ridgway and the Modern Study of Birds.
""Lyrical and lovely . . . A mix of personal encounter and plea for conservation. The dozen species that fall under his gaze include the giant redwood, sequoia, bristlecone pine, and ebony. . . . Seriously, who doesn't love a tree, especially at Christmas?"" --The Guardian, ""Best Science and Nature Books of 2024"" ""This arboreal adventure takes you up mighty trunks and into blazing forest fires. The dozen species chronicled show how much the lives of trees are entwined with people and culture."" --Economist, ""Best Books of 2024"" ""Trees are 'the heartbeat of the world, ' writes Daniel Lewis in Twelve Trees, his love letter to the ancient, life-giving beings with which we share this planet. In 12 chapters, each paired with a beautiful illustration, Lewis takes readers on an arboreal journey around the world and through time. The characters--ebony, sandalwood, ceiba, redwood and so on--quickly come to feel like old friends, their long life histories carefully told and the stakes of their uncertain futures in the Anthropocene clearly laid out. . . . Throughout the book, Lewis weaves in memoir, connecting his own roots with those of the trees he profiles."" --Smithsonian magazine, ""Best Science Books of 2024"" ""A modest title for an extraordinary book, Twelve Trees reexamines the arboreal world from roots to canopy and makes you see trees as you've never seen them before. Taking twelve species (in reality many more), Daniel Lewis exults in their sheer individuality and majesty and tells their tenacious stories with passion, humor, and deep understanding. Despite real ecological threats, there's optimism in his account--all trees are good and with care and conservation, they're bound to succeed!"" --2024 Banff Centre Mountain Book Competition, Special Jury Mention ""A book that brims with wonder, appreciation, and even some small hope.""--Booklist ""Daniel Lewis blends a profound sense of wonder with hard science and a global perspective in offering the histories of a dozen extraordinary species. . . . Lewis is a skilled writer, and it would be hard to overestimate his bonafides in the biological sciences. He locates their intersections with extinction, policy, politics, law, culture, history and literature in lively, often eye-opening prose."" --The Post & Courier ""Daniel Lewis's informative, engrossing, often poetic Twelve Trees is a wonderland of fascinating facts. . . . Twelve Trees is also an engagingly written experiential memoir of the author's quest to learn more about the trees he views as crucial to human life. . . . Lewis leads readers on an awe-inspiring tour of a dozen trees. . . . Twelve Trees offers extenÂsive insight into the ways in which humans and trees are interconnected."" --BookPage ""This engaging heart-and-mind approach to educating readers about trees reveals that they too have lessons to offer to the world. . . . Lewis exhorts readers to try to see the world from a tree's perspective and to practice empathy. Nyquist's exquisite illustrations complement and enhance the book's gorgeous world."" --Library Journal (starred review) ""In Twelve Trees, Daniel Lewis travels the world to meet a dozen unique specimens with the aim to learn more about how trees live and communicate--and what their connected lives might tell us about how we live ours. Brimming with awe for the overstory, the book is also a reminder that life unlike our own is not only mysterious--it's precious."" --LitHub ""Enchanting . . . The plentiful trivia fascinates, and Lewis has a talent for complicating conventional wisdom. . . . The result is a loving paean to all things arboreal."" --Publishers Weekly
