The Man Who Planted Trees     by Jean Giono Original language: French Published by Chelsea Green Publishing Pub. Date: 1999 Format: Paperback, 80 pages Dimensions: (in inches): 0.32 x 8.96 x 6.02 ISBN: 1890132322 Edition: Revised Edition List Price: $8.95 Buy online from Amazon.com for $8.95 Published by Peter Owen Publishers Pub. Date: 1989 Pub. Place: UK Format: 52 pages ISBN: 0720610214 List Price: £6.95 buy now directly from the publisher Free Shipping Worldwide

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A moving parable of a worthwhile life; that of Elzéard Bouffier, the ‘Johnny Appleseed’ of a deafforestated Provence who spends his time ranging over the barren hills raising and planting trees. He does this entirely on his own initiative, because he knows it simply needs to be done.


This is a beautifully told and inspiring story, a kind of Green Bible, revealing, in Giono’s words, ‘the precious secret of humanity’s ancient kinship with the earth’.


It’s also something of a political manifesto from an independent thinking writer who refused the industrial-age populisms of Right and Left. It proposes this; take matters into your own hands, quietly.


A book to re-read once or twice a year and thereby perhaps find the courage to do something worthwhile with your life.

‘In the direction from which we had come the slopes were covered with trees twenty to twenty-five feet tall. I remembered how the land had looked in 1913; a desert....

Peaceful, regular toil, the vigorous mountain air, frugality and, above all, serenity of spirit had endowed this old man with awe-inspiring health. He was one of God’s athletes. I wondered how many more acres he was going to cover with trees.’ p30