Our Oaken Bones: An evening with the author

Join us for a special evening hosted by Patrick Neale, who will be talking to Cornish conservationist, veteran and founder of the Thousand Year Trust, Merlin Hanbury-Tenison about his wonderful new book which has been achieving great acclaim. If you loved Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path and Guy Shrusole’s The Lost Rainforests, you’ll love Our Oaken Bones, a wonderfully inspiring story of renewal and the healing power of nature. 

Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the evening from the Jaffé & Neale bookstall, with the opportunity to get your copy signed and dedicated by Merlin.

The Author 

Merlin Hanbury-Tenison is a Cornish conservationist and veteran who founded the Thousand Year Trust, Britain’s rainforest charity. The charity’s mission is to catalyse the movement to triple Britain’s rainforest cover to one million acres in the next thirty years. His work has been featured in National Geographic, the Guardian and on the BBC. Merlin lives in a rainforest in Cornwall with his wife Lizzie, an entrepreneur and business advisor, and their two young daughters.

The Book

Reeling from the pain of devastating miscarriages and suffering from PTSD after military adventures in Afghanistan, Merlin and his wife Lizzie decide to leave the bustle of London and return to Merlin’s childhood home, a Cornish hill farm called Cabilla in the heart of Bodmin Moor. There, they are met by unexpected challenges: a farm slipping ever further into debt, the discovery that the overgrazed and damaged woods running throughout the valley are in fact one of the UK’s last remaining fragments of Atlantic temperate rainforest, and the sudden and near catastrophic illness of Merlin’s father, the explorer Robin. As they fall more in love with the rainforest that Merlin had adventured in as a child, so begins a fight to save not only themselves and their farm, but also one of the world’s most endangered habitats. Our Oaken Bones is an intimate true story about renewal, the astonishing healing power of nature, and our duty to heal it in return.

It’s been praised by Joanna Lumley who called it: ‘Scholarly, wise, funny, charming, terrifying and thrilling’, by Rory Stewart who described it as ‘a lovely book - wise, brave, thoughtful, painfully intimate - but with a remarkable spiritual and environmental vision’. 

Isabella Tree said it’s ‘an extraordinarily courageous, urgent and powerful book’ and Russel Crowe said it’s ‘deeply compelling... emotional, informative, pleasurable. I believe that this is an important work with planet-sized dreams and ambitions. Perhaps the greatest philosophy or teachable lesson that came to me off the page is that dominion comes with responsibility.’

The FarmED Cafe will be open before the event for refreshments.

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Cancellation Policy

We understand that there may be times when you need to cancel your booking. Our cancellation policy is outlined here.