THE ESSEX READ 2021 

James Canton spent two years sitting with and studying the ancient Honywood Oak. A colossus of a tree, it would have been a sapling when the Magna Carta was signed.

Blending personal experience with cultural legacy, The Oak Papers is a meditative and healing book about the lessons we can learn from the natural world, if only we slow down enough to listen

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.

A homage to the oak tree and the important role it plays today, in our landscape and in our lives.

‘A tribute to the power and history of the oak’

– Daily Telegraph

‘An enchanting piece of nature writing and a meditation on finding connection in a disconnected world.’                                                                             

– THE INDEPENDENT

‘A profound meditation on the human need for connection with nature as one man seeks solace beneath the boughs of an ancient oak tree. The tree and its surrounds come to life in shimmering detail, and Canton’s writing has an exquisite, somewhat dreamlike quality.’

– PETER WOHLLEBEN, author of The Hidden Life of Trees

Tickets £7 / £5