How many different items can be created from a single ash tree? This was the question Robert Penn pondered and set out to answer one winter when he felled an ash tree that had been standing for more than 100 years. The crown and upper branches he cut into stove-length pieces and split by hand for firewood. The straight trunk he had sawn into boards of varying thicknesses, which he gave to master woodworkers to transform into useful objects. Ax handles, bowls that nestled inside one another, a toboggan, a paddle, paneling for his office and a matching desk are just some of the 44 ways the wood was used.
Penn expertly combines the story behind each creation made from the stately tree with scientific data on trees--the ash in particular--as well as the cultural significance of wooden objects and trees throughout human history. Lovely descriptions enhance Penn's prose: "cast in tender light and naked of leaf, [the ash trees] were grey-green barked, sparsely branched, tall, slender and austere with twigs that rose and fell and rose again at their tips to end in the distinctive 'witches' claws', which scratched against the pearl-grey sky. Ash wears the winter with a grace that no other tree species can match, hence its nickname--'Venus of the Woods'." The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees honors the ash Penn felled; it's a swan song for a mighty specimen that once stood in Callow Hill Wood in Britain. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer