Taming Fruit

By Bernd Brunner

A captivating cultural and scientific history of orchards, perfect for readers of Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire and Mark Kurlansky’s Salt 

Throughout history, orchards have served many sacred purposes: they are sites of worship and rest, inspiration for artists and writers, and vibrant community hubs. Moreover, they are places of sustenance. In Taming Fruit, award-winning writer Bernd Brunner interweaves beautiful illustrations and prose to show that the story of orchards is a human story. It is also a story of how humans have shaped and bent nature according to our desires for millennia.

Bernd Brunner is the author of several books including Birdmania and Winterlust, and his writings have appeared in publications around the world including Lapham’s Quarterly, the Paris Review, Quartz, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Wall Street Journal. He divides his time between Istanbul and Berlin.