The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan’s Cherry Blossoms

Ginger says: An MMD Book Club member told me about this book when I traveled to Tokyo for the cherry blossom season a couple years ago and it was so right up my alley: what we’ve affectionately dubbed “microhistory books” in my house. I could hardly believe this narrative nonfiction story about an English gentleman who fell in love with a particular variety of cherry blossom, and planted them all over the world. The trees I saw in Tokyo are there because of his fascination; he recognized one in a painting years after he had brought the same variety back as a cutting after falling in love with the blossoms on his honeymoon there, and was able to then return the beloved blossoms to Japan after they were thought extinct.