The Light Between Apple Trees

"A deeply meditative book in the vein of Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Swee/grass." - Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an
Octopus











As a child
in the foothills of
the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards
of diverse and luscious fruit-especially apples. These biodiverse orchards seemed worlds away from the cardboard apples that lined
supermarket shelves in the United
States. Yet on a small patch
of woods near her home in Santa Fe, Kumar discovered a wild apple tree-and theseeds of an odyssey
were planted. Could the taste of a feral apple offer
a doorway to the wild? In The Light Between Apple Trees, Kumar
takes us on a dazzling
and transformative journey
to rediscover apples, unearthing a rich and complex history while illuminating how we can reimagine our
relationship with nature.







Apples are popular, but in our everyday lives we rarely encounter more than a handful of
varieties: of the sixteen thousand apple varieties once celebrated
in America, scarcely a fifth remain accessible. Kumar reveals the richness of a hidden world, bringing readers to the vibrant forests and orchards where historic trees still survive. These
mature and wild orchards offer more than just fruit: they are havens for creatures from hummingbirds to bears and a living connection to generations past. She brilliantly weaves together science and childhood
memories with the apple's storied history, from its roots in Kazakhstan to Spanish orchards in the Southwest and Thomas Jefferson's beloved Monticello fruitery.