Nature-writing? Yes! History? Yes! A History of Nature? Where do I start reading? That’s basically my thought process when I saw The Wood That Built London on Netgalley.

The Wood That Built London is a history of the North Wood, starting from prehistoric times all the way to the present day. As you can imagine, that’s a huge undertaking and the book delves into many fascinating details about the woods, including charters regarding the woods, the Forest law (which was hated so much that it was repealed when the Magna Carta was signed), the oak change (a mysterious phenomenon that might be due to the introduction of oak mildew), and many other facts. I never knew that trees could have such a rich and deep history, nor did I realise how deeply the British depended on these woods.

Despite all these fascinating stories, The Wood The Built London can be a bit difficult to read because it’s very hard to make an emotional connection, or sustain interest in a book about trees (since I’m not the Lorax). I think I half expected this to be something along the lines of Field Notes from the Edge, which did not have an overarching storyline to the book but still held my interest. The Wood That Built London was very information-dense and sadly, it was far too easy to just read a little and put the book down. It didn’t help that I’m not super familiar with London, so a lot of the time the names and places just flew over my head; I think a connection to modern-day areas would have helped anchor the place better for me.

Overall, this was an interesting book, but one that I would recommend only for a very specific group of people. If you’re extremely interested in history, especially the history of London and if you’re keen to read something that’s full of information but may not have that much of a personal touch, then this may be the book for you. Or, if you’re not like me, maybe you could just dip in and out of the book, because there really are quite a few interesting stories in here.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Feature Image: Photo from Canva