A history of the oak tree identifies its significance in religious rites, homemaking, travel, literature, and the outcome of key military conflicts, in an account that documents the communitarian and educational nature of the oak and what it reveals about the natural world's link to science, philosophy, spirituality, and other human disciplines. 20,000 first printing.

Oak: The Frame of Civilization

Literature & Fiction

Logan, William Bryant

Poetry

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

The author of Dirt and Oak brings to life this quickest, most sustaining, most communicative element of the earth. Air sustains the living. Every creature breathes to live, exchanging and changing the atmosphere. Water and dust spin and rise, make clouds and fall again, fertilizing the dirt. Twenty thousand fungal spores and half a million bacteria travel in a square foot of summer air. The chemical sense of aphids, the ultraviolet sight of swifts, a newborn’s awareness of its mother’s breast―all take place in the medium of air. Ignorance of the air is costly. The artist Eva Hesse died of inhaling her fiberglass medium. Thousands were sickened after 9/11 by supposedly “safe” air. The African Sahel suffers drought in part because we fill the air with industrial dusts. With the passionate narrative style and wide-ranging erudition that have made William Bryant Logan’s work a touchstone for nature lovers and environmentalists, Air is―like the contents of a bag of seaborne dust that Darwin collected aboard the Beagle―a treasure trove of discovery. 25 illustrations

Air: The Restless Shaper of the World

Science & Math

Earth Sciences

W.W.Norton&Company

"A dazzling book, full of knowledge and rare wisdom, too" ―Thomas Pakenham, author of Remarkable Trees of the World
Professional arborist and award-winning nature writer William Bryant Logan deftly relates the delightful history of the reciprocal relationship between humans and oak trees since time immemorial. For centuries these supremely adaptable, generous trees have supported humankind in nearly every facet of life. From the ink of Bach’s cantatas to the first boat to reach the New World, the wagon, the barrel, and the sword, oak trees have been a constant presence in our past. Yet we’ve largely forgotten the oak’s role in civilization. With reverence, humor, and compassion, Logan awakens us to the vibrant presence of the oak throughout our history and in today’s world.

Reference

"A gleeful, poetic book…Like the best natural histories, Dirt is a kind of prayer." ―Los Angeles Times Book Review
"You are about to read a lot about dirt, which no one knows very much about." So begins the cult classic that brings mystery and magic to "that stuff that won't come off your collar."
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Saint Phocas, Darwin, and Virgil parade through this thought-provoking work, taking their place next to the dung beetle, the compost heap, dowsing, historical farming, and the microscopic biota that till the soil. Whether William Bryant Logan is traversing the far reaches of the cosmos or plowing through our planet’s crust, his delightful, elegant, and surprisingly soulful meditations greatly enrich our concept of "dirt," that substance from which we all arise and to which we all must return.

Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth

Biological Sciences

In a sublime exploration of the most unpredictable element of the earth, William Bryant Logan opens our eyes to the astonishing physics, chemistry, biology, history, art, and even music of the air.
Air sustains the living. Every creature breathes to live, exchanging and changing the atmosphere. Water and dust spin and rise, make clouds and fall again, fertilizing the dirt. Twenty thousand fungal spores and half a million bacteria travel in a square foot of summer air. The chemical sense of aphids, the ultraviolet sight of swifts, a newborn’s awareness of its mother’s breast―all take place in the medium of air.
Ignorance of the air is costly. The artist Eva Hesse died of inhaling her fiberglass medium. Thousands were sickened after 9/11 by supposedly “safe” air. The African Sahel suffers drought in part because we fill the air with industrial dusts. With the passionate narrative style and wide-ranging erudition that have made William Bryant Logan’s work a touchstone for nature lovers and environmentalists, Air is―like the contents of a bag of seaborne dust that Darwin collected aboard the Beagle―a treasure trove of discovery. 20 illustrations

Once, farmers and rural people knew how to prune hazel to foster abundance: both of edible nuts and of straight, strong, flexible rods for bridges, walls, and baskets. Townspeople felled their beeches to make charcoal to fuel ironworks. Shipwrights shaped oaks to make hulls. No place could prosper without its inhabitants knowing how to cut their trees so they would sprout again.Pruning the trees didn't destroy them. Rather, it created the healthiest, most sustainable and diverse woodlands that we have ever known. Arborist William Bryant Logan offers us both practical knowledge about how to live with trees to mutual benefit and hope that humans may again learn what the persistence and generosity of trees can teach. He recovers the lost tradition that sustained human life and culture for ten millennia.

Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Gardening & Landscape Design

Arborist William Bryant Logan recovers the lost tradition that sustained human life and culture for ten millennia.
Once, farmers knew how to make a living hedge and fed their flocks on tree-branch hay. Rural people knew how to prune hazel to foster abundance: both of edible nuts, and of straight, strong, flexible rods for bridges, walls, and baskets. Townspeople cut their beeches to make charcoal to fuel ironworks. Shipwrights shaped oaks to make hulls. No place could prosper without its inhabitants knowing how to cut their trees so they would sprout again.
Pruning the trees didn’t destroy them. Rather, it created the healthiest, most sustainable and most diverse woodlands that we have ever known. In this journey from the English fens to Spain, Japan, and California, William Bryant Logan rediscovers what was once an everyday ecology. He offers us both practical knowledge about how to live with trees to mutual benefit and hope that humans may again learn what the persistence and generosity of trees can teach. 15 black and white illustrations

The Garden Writers Association of America declared it best book of the year for 1998. And The New York Times wrote: "Logan, who is one of our best garden writers, has produced not only a real book but a scrupulously researched, handsomely designed, and highly enjoyable one to book."The Took Book celebrates garden tools in all their pleasure, practicality, variety, beauty, ingenuity, simplicity, and purity. Thirteen chapters and over 70 striking full-color photographic spreads-obsessive and obsessively informative-present hundreds of tools organized by task: 22 shovels, 21 spades, 12 trowels, 16 hoes, 11 weeders, 19 hand pruners, 10 pruning saws. In addition to garden tool necessities, here are knives, axes, hooks, watering cans, rakes, riddles, brooms, wheel barrows, shears, and scoops, and much more. There are tools to start the garden from seed in the spring, tools to keep it growing and healthy all summer, and tools clean up in the fall. And, finally, tools to care for the tools. In addition, the the book presents a detailed overview of the marriage of tool to type of work-how garden tools evolved, how to use each type of tool properly, and what to look for in a tool. It's the right tool for the right job. 37,000 copies in print.

Smith & Hawken: The Tool Book

Workman Publishing Company

Smith & Hawken: The Tool Book: A Compendium of Over 500 Tools for the Well-Tended Garden

Describes basic design features, including paths, walls, fences, and pools, and tells how to plan, prepare, and maintain a garden

The English Gardening School: The Complete Master Course on Garden Planning and Landscape Design for the American Gardener

Alexander, Rosemary

Du Gard Pasley, Anthony

English Gardening School (Chelsea, London, England)

Grove Pr

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Logan, William Bryant. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Logan, William Bryant

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Logan, William Bryant. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Oak: The Frame of Civilization

Air: The Restless Shaper of the World

Oak: The Frame of Civilization

Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth

Air: The Restless Shaper of the World

Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees

Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees

Smith & Hawken: The Tool Book

Smith & Hawken: The Tool Book: A Compendium of Over 500 Tools for the Well-Tended Garden

The English Gardening School: The Complete Master Course on Garden Planning and Landscape Design for the American Gardener