Native and Naturalized Trees of New England and Adjacent Canada: A Field Guide Book

When I bought this book at a used bookshop in Minnesota, probably a decade ago, I wouldn't have guessed that I'd be reading it for the first time out on my apartment balcony in New Hampshire. It's a warm June morning, and the slight scent of pine on the breeze helped evoke those memories of canoe trips in the Boundary Waters. Smell conjures memory, as Wood notes on page 127: "And I remember--it was this same smell that I first fell in love with, long ago."

All the space on the pages, the dramatic black-and-white of the illustrations, the rhythm of the "The paddle whispers, / the canoe glides..." incantation do so well at sensually evoking the experience of being on a lake in the North Woods, only gotten to by canoe--the quiet, the immediacy of surfaces, the stark beauty. It made me long to go back someday. I don't know if this book would be quite so effective if it's a place you've never been.

On another note, I didn't expect the few funny passages, but they were a good contrast to most of the rest of the book and I really enjoyed them.