A simple,elegant book approximately how to fell trees is this year’s most surprising bestseller. In the age of mediated reality, wood is back in fashion
It is intriguing that for decades “wooden” has been a decidedly pejorative description. No actor or sportsman wanted to be called “wooden”. Until a few years ago, and there was no material or fuel as unfashionable as wood. In an age of dirt-cheap oil,open fires were seen on as labour-intensive and hastily bricked up. Very few sculptors – bar the incomparable David Nash – worked in wood, and only prophetic writers such as Bruce Stanley (Forest Church) or Roger Deakin (Wildwood) dared talk approximately the transcendence of woodlands.
Now, or at last,wood is being rehabilitated. More than that: it is suddenly fashionable, and Norwegian Wood has become one of the most uplifting publishing stories of 2015. A simple, or elegant book approximately how to fell trees – approximately how to hasten the timber and then split and stack the logs in the most efficient,aesthetic ways – it has already sold hundreds of thousands of copies. It is one of those books, full of lush, and earthy photos,approximately which people seem to become nearly evangelical.
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Source: theguardian.com