Richard Ogilvy, Susan Ogilvy. Penguin, (192p) ISBN: 9780241674727. Nature Writing, read 07/06/25, Hardback ★★★★☆

Overleaf: An Album of British Trees

I always like books on nature, especially when they are given to me out of the blue.

I especially like those nature books that break down what they’re writing about into nice, small, easily digested chunks.

In this book Richard and Susan Ogilvy take us on a brief tour of the trees of Britain, both native and those that have been around long enough to be naturalised.

Each tree gets four pages to talk about it and show off a (for the most part) single leaf. The first page is the left hand side of a two page spread with the right hand side a gorgeous watercolour of the top of the leaf, turn the page over and ‘overleaf’ is the underside of the leaf then another page talking about the tree.

I loved the little conceit in the title and it works so well as a book making it fun and consistent.

Understandably given that space to talk about each tree is constrained  by this format each tree has a whistle stop tour rather than an in-depth exploration, but the tour is enough to give you a feel for the trees place in Britain, its history, its personal microcosm of inhabitants large and small, as well as some of the uses people have put it to.

Definitely a keeper and I loved that someone thought of me when they saw this.