Evergreen

Environmental biologist and Cornell professor Trent Preszler takes readers from a Christmas tree farm on Long Island where the most popular trees sell out weeks ahead of the holiday - and are coated in neon-colored paint - back to the earliest days of America, where the Puebloans build some of the most remarkable structures on the continent with evergreen timber. Revealing how this land's prodigious pine forests first tempted the colonists - the Mayflower expedition was sponsored by a British lumber company - and how the felling and selling of evergreens was the foundation of the colonies' economy, Evergreen is a lively, surprising tour of how our country was built by the very trees we lug into our living rooms each December. Highlighting little known stories and vital connections between past and present, Preszler's wide-ranging account is a call to appreciate these prehistoric wonders in a completely fresh way. His writing is rigorous and delightful, anthropological and environmental - and offers a healthy dose of Christmas spirit.