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A Living Art
Arborsculpture: Solutions for a Small Planet
By Richard Reames, Arborsmith Studios

Imagine a room -- or even an entire house -- made of living trees. Picture spiraling tree trunks, artfully knotted branches, and growing chairs rooted to the ground. The art is called arborsculpture, and in his book by the same title, Richard Reames describes the unusual practice from its historical roots to its contemporary upsurge here and there around the world.

Illustrated with black-and-white photos and drawings, Reames' book looks at such related practices as pleaching ('the technique of weaving branches together into a flat plane . . . to create a sort of hedge on stilts'), bonsai, and espalier, an art form in which trees are trained to a flat plane and then shaped, a practice that reached its peak in mid-19th-century France. Reames, author of the 1995 book How to Grow a Chair, profiles such progenitors as Axel Erlandson and his California-based Tree Circus, describes artists such as Joseph Beuys who have used living trees for sculptures, and introduces the work of contemporary arborsculptors. Finally, he gives tips on what he has learned about trees' properties and the practices of grafting, budding, framing, and otherwise shaping them.

Is the practice natural? Arguably so. Trees sometimes naturally grow together on their own, a process known as inosculation, but Reames and his curious kindred spirits take it to a new level. For Reames, whose sense of wonder is paired with respect for trees as living beings, trees are not toys but teachers with crucial lessons for humanity. His self-published book conveys this clearly, along with a sense of movement toward a more coherent vision. -- Chris Dodge

Blithe Tomato
By Mike Madison (Great Valley Books)

You don't need to possess an arcane knowledge of heirloom tomatoes or know how to drive a tractor to appreciate this collection of carefully crafted essays, billed (perhaps too modestly) as 'an insider's wry look at farmers' market society.' Madison writes with a rare patience. His prose never clamors for attention, but rolls with precision across the page, drawing out the everyday scenes of a farmer's life and then leaving them to speak for themselves. The result is an enchanting landscape where every seemingly mundane observation ('I've noticed an odd thing,' he begins) nods toward a deeper, resounding truth. -- Julie Hanus

Perishable: A Memoir
By Dirk Jamison (Chicago Review Press)

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