Unveiling Secrets and Shadows: A Riveting Journey in The Light Between Apple Trees
Reviewed by Brian Watson
Although I was disappointed to learn that I am not America’s beloved fruit, Priyanka Kumar’s hybrid memoir, The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit (Island Press; Sept. 2025), part botany and zoology, part ecology and climate, and part loving portrait of the author’s life, felt like it was written expressly for me.
I might not have made a career out of my honors major in Biology, but those classes formed the foundation for my years as a macro floral photographer, as I researched the scientific names of the flowers I found, including Malus domestica, apple trees. And for Ms. Kumar to go into exquisite detail on the evolutionary history of apples, noting the contributions from both Malus sieversii (a wild species of apple found in Kazakhstan) and Malus sylvestris (a European species of crabapple) brought my inner, oft-neglected, scientist great delight.
