Franklin (tree) Franklin (tree) Franklin is a giant sequoia in Giant Forest, a sequoia grove where the largest tree in the world lives - the General Sherman. The Franklin tree is the eighth largest giant sequoia in the world. It was named by Wendell Flint after Benjamin Franklin. Nearby trees include the Washington Tree which was once the second largest tree in the world, but since it lost half its trunk in 2005 many sequoias are now larger. Giant Forest, famed for its giant sequoia trees, is within Sequoia National Park. The forest, at over in elevation, is located in the western
The World Is What It Is The World Is What It Is The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul is a biography of the Nobel Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul by Patrick French. It was published in 2008 (by Picador in the UK and Knopf in the USA). The title is a quotation from Naipaul's book "A Bend in the River". "The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." French deals with Naipaul's family background and his life from his birth in 1932 until his second marriage