鈥淎 deeply meditative book in the vein of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass.鈥�
鈥擲y Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus
As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit鈥攅specially apples. These biodiverse orchards seemed worlds away from the cardboard apples that lined supermarket shelves in the United States. Yet on a small patch of woods near her home in Santa Fe, Kumar discovered a wild apple tree鈥攁nd the seeds of an odyssey were planted. Could the taste of a feral apple offer a doorway to the wild? In The Light Between Apple Trees, Kumar takes us on a dazzling and transformative journey to rediscover apples, unearthing a rich and complex history while illuminating how we can reimagine our relationship with nature.
Apples are popular, but in our everyday lives we rarely encounter more than a handful of varieties: of the sixteen thousand apple varieties once celebrated in America, scarcely a fifth remain accessible. Kumar reveals the richness of a hidden world, bringing readers to the vibrant forests and orchards where historic trees still survive. These mature and wild orchards offer more than just fruit: they are havens for creatures from hummingbirds to bears and a living connection to generations past. She brilliantly weaves together science and childhood memories with the apple鈥檚 storied history, from its roots in Kazakhstan to Spanish orchards in the Southwest and Thomas Jefferson鈥檚 beloved Monticello fruitery.
The Light Between Apple Trees is a lyric odyssey that will forever change how you look at an 鈥渁pple a day.鈥� Kumar shows how鈥攊f we follow untamed paths鈥攖he tang and texture of an apple can lead us back to the wild.
"Nature writer Kumar (Conversations with Birds) explores the history and diversity of apples in this thorough mix of memoir and ecology... readers will be inspired to reconnect with nature."鈥�Publishers Weekly
"A captivating cultural history of the heirloom apple, The Light Between Apple Trees delivers an urgent message about maintaining biodiversity during a time of ecological tumult."鈥�Foreword Reviews
"Can a book about apple trees change the world? Priyanka Kumar's visionary book transformed the way I look at biodiversity and the wild, and I feel certain it will do the same for you."鈥�Psychology Today
"A delicious book to savor from an author who’s impeccable research and “field work” in orchards and along river trails in Northern New Mexico combine with visceral memories from her native Himalayan foothills. A journey around the world through apples, this book essentially defines what’s really happening with climate change. Climate change through the core of the apple!"鈥擟arly Newfeld, KSFR "The Last Word"
"A tour de force. This book is a joy and a profoundly serious work."鈥擱obert Scheer, Scheer Intelligence
"A book luminous with wonder and brimming with curiosity. The wild entanglements of trees and people are vividly evoked in these marvelous explorations, showing how the living world is animated and united by caretaking and mutualism."鈥擠avid George Haskell, biologist and two-time Pulitzer-finalist author of "Sounds Wild and Broken," "The Songs of Trees," and "The Forest Unseen"
"A deeply meditative book in the vein of Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, The Light Between Apple Trees begins with Priyanka’s relationship with these most beloved and widely cultivated of life-giving fruit trees. She then takes us along on intimate explorations of historic orchards and examines how deepening our ecological consciousness today could help restore the health of our ailing forests."鈥擲y Montgomery, author of "The Soul of an Octopus"
"The apple is not yet tamed, and neither are we. Priyanka Kumar’s The Light Between Apple Trees is rich, complex, and wonderfully wild."鈥擬ichelle Nijhuis, author of "Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction"
"Join Priyanka Kumar on a captivating exploration of wild apple trees and the people who tend them. In the Southwest, these ancient groves are threatened by drying acequias and diminishing expertise in orchards, but Kumar shows us reasons for hope in hundred-year-old trees and passionate caretakers. This is environmental writing at its best."鈥擩oan Strassmann, author of "Slow Birding"
"Enchanted by apples, Priyanka Kumar takes the reader along on a wide-ranging exploration of the fruit. The Light Between Apple Trees is a unique book about family, the environment, cultivation, and the need for the preservation of wild places. Priyanka Kumar is one of the most interesting and enjoyable voices in contemporary natural history writing."鈥擬ark Lynch, host of Inquiry on WICN
"The transatlantic travels of the apple are also fascinating, extending from New Mexico to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, who was a devoted grower and admirer of apples in his 8-acre 'fruitery'. The essayist and broadcaster Priyanka Kumar has just explored them in her new book, The Light Between Apple Trees."鈥擱obin Lane Fox, Financial Times
