"Fraser's The Golden Bough, first published a little over 100 years ago, sought the solace of religion in the trees of the Sacred Grove. The Story of Yew, though expressed in human terms, reaches deeper and finds comfort in the oneness of life, a biochemistry which passes on the wisdom of nature."

Professor David Bellamy, President of the Conservation Foundation, ecologist, author and TV personality.

176 pages hardback, illustrated

How often do you encounter a tale told by a tree? A tree that had seen a thousand winters before the Vikings came to America. She is a female tree, she explains with botanical exactitude, with access to the consciousness and memories of all other trees, and even to her own race memory, which is that of the first tree that grew on Earth. This is the Story of Yew, oldest of the old. And because her story becomes intimately entwined with humankind, it is also the Story of You.

Ah, humankind! At first, because she is vain and inexperienced, Yew despises these strange two-legged creatures who crash into her ken, invading her placid grove to make it a temple for bloody sacrifice. She comes to tolerate the succeeding races who reverence her stately, massive form, seeing in her longevity and powers of renewal an expression of Nature Herself. Gradually, she comes to understand her power. She communicates with birds and insects. She gathers information through the fungal network which links her to every other plant in her land. She discovers the yew's terrifying ability to kill all other species in her forest. After 2000 years she also experiences her own death. But her roots remain and sprout new shoots...

Reviews

"An eloquent, philosophical and wonderful tale."

Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times

Guido Mina di Sospiro was born in Buenos Aires into an ancient aristrocratic Italian family, but raised in Milan from when he was three months old. A protege of the late Hungarian composer Miklos Rozsa, upon his urging he moved to Los Angeles, and attended the Cinema Production Department at the University of Southern California.

He was later married in New York, and eventually moved to Florida. There, in his hurricane-tested, soundproof studio, shaded by live oaks, enveloped by creeping fig, and visited by squirrels, opossums, racoons, foxes, etc., he has written the story of the English yew by setting it entirely in his beloved Ireland. He still lives in Miami with his wife and three sons, and with them migrates anually to Europe.