Nationally-acclaimed naturalist and the author of THE LIGHT BETWEEN APPLE TREES and CONVERSATIONS WITH BIRDS, praised as “a landmark book” that “could help people around the world rewild their hearts and souls” (Psychology Today), Kumar has been compared to Rachel Carson.
“ENVIRONMENTAL WRITING AT ITS BEST” Joan Strassmann
“LUMINOUS WITH WONDER” David George Haskell
“WONDERFULLY WILD” Michelle Nijhuis
“PRIYANKA KUMAR IS DOING FOR TREES WHAT RACHEL CARSON HAS DONE FOR SEA CREATURES” James Ragan
“A DEEPLY MEDITATIVE BOOK IN THE VEIN OF ROBIN WALL KIMMERER’S BRAIDING SWEETGRASS” Sy Montgomery
“Can a book about apple trees change the world? Kumar’s visionary book transformed the way I look at biodiversity and the wild, and I feel certain it will do the same for you.” — Marc Bekoff, PSYCHOLOGY TODAY
Ecological awareness and activism often begin with a personal story or connection to nature, and Kumar has zeroed in on an iconic fruit that is part of American lore. She knows that rediscovering our relationship with nature, however imperfect, is a fundamental step toward stewardship. The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit… illuminate(s) how even a single fruit can evoke deep connections and serve as a launching point for environmental action. — Matthew Clark, AMERICAN SCIENTIST
“A captivating cultural history of the heirloom apple, The Light Between Apple Trees delivers an urgent message about maintaining biodiversity during a time of ecological tumult.” — FOREWORD REVIEWS (starred review)
“A tour de force. This book is a joy and a profoundly serious work.” — Robert Scheer, SCHEER INTELLIGENCE
“A pivotal book from one of the country’s foremost naturalists.” — Sabrina Jacobs, A RUDE AWAKENING on KPFA
“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. [It] 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.” — Jane Manaster, SEATTLE BOOK REVIEW (starred review)
“For gardeners and orchardists, Kumar’s work is a treasure. . . .The Light Between Apple Trees transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. An apple is no longer just fruit; it is a story of human cultivation, ecological loss, and hope for the future.” — LOCAL GARDENER
“A delicious book to savor from an author whose impeccable research and field work in orchards combine with visceral memories from her native Himalayan foothills. A journey around the world through apples, this book also essentially defines what’s really happening with climate change. Climate change through the core of the apple!” — Carly Newfeld, THE LAST WORD on KSFR
“Enchanted by apples, Priyanka Kumar takes the reader along on a wide-ranging exploration of the fruit. The Light Between Apple Trees is a unique book about family, the environment, cultivation, and the need for the preservation of wild places. Priyanka Kumar is one of the most interesting and enjoyable voices in contemporary natural history writing.” — Mark Lynch, host of INQUIRY on WICN
“The transatlantic travels of the apple are also fascinating, extending from New Mexico to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, who was a devoted grower and admirer of apples in his 8-acre “fruitery”. The essayist and broadcaster Priyanka Kumar has just explored them in her new book, The Light Between Apple Trees.” — Robin Lane Fox, FINANCIAL TIMES
“Nature writer Kumar (Conversations with Birds) explores the history and diversity of apples in this thorough mix of memoir and ecology . . . readers will be inspired to reconnect with nature.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY’S Reading Gem
FOOD TANK’S Fall Reading Recommendation
NEW BOOKS NETWORK’S Book of the Day
FOREWORD REVIEWS’ Book of the Day
Lineup announced for 2026 Santa Fe International Literary Festival: Literary Festival Founder Carmella Padilla raves about local author, filmmaker and naturalist Priyanka Kumar. Her latest book, The Light Between Apple Trees, has been called “environmental writing at its best.”
Newsletter: CONVERSATIONS with NATURE
BOOKSHOP.ORG
“Birds are my almanac. They tune me into the seasons, and into myself.”
Praise:
A Publisher’s Weekly “Top Ten Nonfiction Book,” An Apple Best Book of the Month; Reading Group Choices Editors’ Pick; 2023 CLMP Firecracker Award Finalist; John Burroughs Medal Finalist; a Bookshop.org “Read Outside the Big Five” selection, a Shereads “Best Nonfiction Book Coming in 2022,” a BookRiot “Amazing Nonfiction Book” for Fall 22, and a Birds, Birders, & Birdwatching: Best Books selection.
Priyanka Kumar lovingly narrates how encounters with birds have molded her outlook on life, family, and nature, bridging the mountains of her childhood in India to her adult wanderings in California and New Mexico. A spark was Kumar’s chance “mango-colored bird” sighting—a Western Tanager—that stirs her to “aliveness” during a near-death experience; her powerful musings take off from there. Her writing is full of beauty but also tells of destruction of the interconnected ecosystems that sustain birds and people. “Sometimes it just takes the right bird to awaken us,” she writes.
—Audubon
In this collection of elegant and evocative essays, a novelist reflects on the beauty and significance of birds, those animals that “become a portal to a more vivid, enchanted world.”
—The New York Times
Priyanka Kumar’s outstanding and profoundly moving book Conversations with Birds … could help people around the world rewild their hearts and souls…. (A) landmark, most timely book.
—Psychology Today
“This isn’t just a book about birds, it’s a look at the joy and curiosity we feel when we build connections with the natural world…. With gorgeously descriptive language, (Kumar) shares her fascinating discoveries about birds and uses them as a gateway to explore topics like climate change, racism, and spirituality. For anyone feeling lost in our increasingly complicated human world, Conversations With Birds is just the compass you need.”
—Apple, November Best Books of the Month
Novelist Kumar (Take Wing and Fly Here) wows in this sparkling exploration of her relationship with the birds that serve as her “almanac” and help her tune “in to the seasons” and to herself. . . . Kumar’s reflections are rendered in elegant prose and are rich with vivid descriptions: “At the brink of the water, turquoise with milky sprays, the birds pirouetted and scooted away from the vigorously choppy waves” . . . These outstanding reflections will inspire and enlighten, and are perfect for readers of Diane Ackerman.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A delightful ode to birds and a powerful defense of the planet we share with them…. An eloquent depiction of how birding engenders a deep love of our ecosystems and a more profound understanding of ourselves.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Just as immersion in nature inspires a mix of profound awe and renewed curiosity about this Earth we call home, so, too, does filmmaker and novelist Priyanka Kumar’s mesmerizing essay collection, Conversations With Birds —rendered in finely wrought prose, steeped in memory and thrumming with endless curiosity.
—BookPage (starred review)
Christians need people like Kumar: prophets and poets who are at the periphery of our norms, stirring us from our apathetic slumber, pointing us back into conversation with creation . . . and inspiring us to consider the birds.
—The Christian Century
It is glorious to be in this world with Kumar. It will prompt you to get out and explore wherever you are living.
—Hippocampus Magazine
As a naturalist and artist, Kumar joins a tradition of writers—among them Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and Annie Dillard—whose work urges us to reimagine what it means to be living in communion with the natural world. . . Kumar models a perspective that strikes me as astonishingly clear-eyed: a disciplined and sustainable practice that readers would be wise to take on.
—CRAFT
Conversations with Birds does something that few other bird books do: passionately writes about that moment when a person becomes a birder. . . [this book] reveals a bright new voice among the usual bird literature.
—Bird Observer
I appreciate the tenderness and honor with which Priyanka Kumar reflects on the importance of birds in her life. They mark seasons and stages, bear the wounds of climate change and still persevere with power and grace.
—Ms. Magazine
(Kumar’s) essay collection reveals the wonders of the avian world and suggests that anyone willing to look upward—even in a bustling metropolis such as Los Angeles—can see nature unfolding in encounters that both anchor and stir the soul.
—Alta Journal
In the luminous essays of Priyanka Kumar’s Conversations with Birds, birds are a portal to reclaiming childhood connections with nature and the lush, wild landscape of northern India’s remote mountains.
—Foreword Reviews
A bird the color of mangoes, a beachcomber with a crescent-moon bill, the owl who controls the dark side of nature: in unforgettable encounters with feathered neighbors like these, Priyanka Kumar charts the life-changing surprise and splendor that birds can bring. They open the heart. They widen the soul. For Kumar, a peripatetic filmmaker and often a stranger in a strange land, birds have revealed connection and created wholeness. How grateful I am for the chance to join this generous author’s lyrical, intimate, and revelatory conversations with birds!
—Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus
“Birds have guided Priyanka Kumar through danger, loss, joy, and change. In her moving collection of elegant essays, Conversations with Birds, she recounts her close encounters with cranes and curlews, owls and tanagers, generously sharing their wisdom and her own.“
—Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction
“Priyanka Kumar is attuned to the animating power that links her—and you and me—to our fellow creatures. While she has a deep affinity for birds, especially cranes and eagles and owls, she communes as well with bobcat, coyote, fox, and their four-legged kin. It is a joy to travel with this versatile artist, often in the company of her husband and their two young daughters, as she roams the American Southwest in search of elusive and majestic wildlife.”
—Scott R. Sanders, author of The Way of Imagination
“Priyanka Kumar’s graceful and unusual work reminds us, again, of everything we lose with each insult to the natural world. Conversations with Birds is a wonderful read!”
—Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever
Priyanka Kumar on CBS News Radio on how Mahatma Gandhi inspired MLK Jr. to pursue the path of nonviolence.
Photography by Priyanka Kumar, from the exhibit, A Bird in Hand, at The Bat and The Buffalo Gallery, 821 Canyon Rd, Santa Fe.