The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit

Author Priyanka Kumar brought her fascination with apples from her childhood home in the Himalayan foothills to the orchards close by her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her book explores the history of the fruit’s first presence several centuries ago as it has traveled across oceans and continents. The saga of her quest is revealed on the pages of The Light Between Apple Trees.

Her account derives from extensive research as well as travel for personal interviews with apple growers in commercial orchards, in rural settings, and several one-of-a-kind characters eager to share their knowledge.

Her passion has been far more than simply looking and listening to the tales of such familiar varieties as the Granny Smith which journeyed south from Australia’s New South Wales to Tasmania. Kumar describes her expertise with propagating, grafting and pruning some of the trees growing, as it were, in her own back yard.

Apple production surged in America from the early nineteenth century’s one hundred varieties to more than five hundred identified fifty years later.

The Light BetweenApple Trees takes readers on a journey from past to present, locating cultivated orchards and feral apples, many tastier than the dozen choices offered in our supermarkets.