Book Club with Bob Gilbert

Event Information

Based on his book 'Ghost Trees', Bob Gilbert leads a walk exploring street trees of the East End, how they have helped shape its landscape and influenced its social history. He will also reveal the secret stories behind their everyday presence; the relationship between the lime tree and love, the protective power of the birch, how plane trees came to represent the resilience of Londoners and how conkers won the First World War.

In this book, Bob Gilbert explores the hidden wildlife of the inner city and its edgelands, finding unexpected beauty in the cracks and crannies and uncovering the deep and essential relationship that exists between people and nature when they are bound together in such close proximity. Beginning from Poplar, the East End area in which he lives, Bob explores our relationship with the trees that have helped shape London, from the original wildwood through to the street trees of today. He draws from natural history, poetry and painting, myth and magic, and a great deal of walking, observing and listening. Beautifully written, passionate and defiant, Ghost Trees tells the secrets and stories of the urban wildscape, of glorious nature resilient and resurgent on our very doorsteps.

“Ghost Trees” by Bob Gilbert

Long-listed for the Wainwright Prize

Long-listed for the Rathbones Folio Prize

A Guardian Book of the Year

A White Review Book of the Year

Book Reviewer quotes

'Full of deep truths and improbable marvels..... a joyous hymn to the urban wild and a clarion call for better -greener, wilder- cities.'

Guardian

'Ghost Trees' maps in fascinating detail how the trees planted in Poplar have defined each of its contrasting epochs'

Sunday Telegraph

One of the best non-fiction books about London. Bob Gilbert's gifted style of writing....helps to make this secret life of trees an unlikely page turner.

The Londonist

Lyrical and beautifully evocative ....as rich and lilting as the contours of this estuarine land.

BBC CountryfileContributors