Roger Deakin and Raynor Winn are touchstones for Menmuir, who has been nominated for the Booker Prize for a previous novel, The Many.
We find coffin makers, boat builders, forest bathers and willow weavers among the pages, which cover tales from across the UK and Ireland.
In lockdown, many dreamt of getting back to nature, for instance doing something useful with wood.
Menmuir meets planters, ecologists, carvers, crafters, bodgers and woodland folk, whose lifestyles are the envy of many who long for a reconnection to wilder lands.
Examples of where the author visits are an oceanic rainforest in Wicklow where seeds are collected from ancient trees, a borderland planter in north Wales, boatbuilders (Menmuir enjoys messing about in boats) in Cornwall and Scotland, and a bodger in a field in Cambridgeshire.
Sycamore Gap on Hadrian's Wall is a "thin place" in which "the gap between this place and some otherland is almost tangible" and where our pasts "seems to connect us".
In the end, we find how precious woods are and what they can mean for the future, with Menmuir a perfect guide to walk us through the forest.
The Heart of the Woods by Wyl Menmuir published 6 June by Aurum.
