This is a Leonberger Dog Blog but sometimes I post about other things such as this review and promotion of the Overstory by Richard Powers. This is a great Pulitzer Prize winning novel about Trees by Richard Powers.
Below is an overview of the four formats of The Overstory
- Hardcover – Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (April 3, 2018), ASIN : 039363552X, ISBN-13 : 978-0393635522, 512 pages, Item Weight : 1.85 pounds, Dimensions : 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches, it cost $13.61 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
- Paperback – Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (April 2, 2019), ASIN : 039335668X, ISBN-13 : 978-0393356687, 512 pages, Item Weight : 1.24 pounds, Dimensions : 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.3 inches, it cost $16.89 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
- Kindle – Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (April 3, 2018), ASIN : B073VX7HT4, ISBN-13 : 978-0393635539, 513 pages. It is currently $2.99 on Amazon.com. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
- Audio Edition – Publisher : Recorded Books (April 03, 2018), ASIN : B078PJ4Q9D, Listening Length : 22 hours and 58 minutes, it cost $0,99 with membership. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Amazon’s Description of The Overstory
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction
Winner of the William Dean Howells Medal
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
Over One Year on the New York Times Bestseller List
Named One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by the New York Times Book Review
A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
“The best novel ever written about trees, and really just one of the best novels, period.” ―Ann Patchett
The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of―and paean to―the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours―vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.
This is my five star amazon review of The Overstory
This Novel will Change how you view Trees and Life
The main characters in this epic story Nicholas Hoel (Watchman), Olivia Vandergriff (Maidenhair), Mimi Ma (Mulberry), Douglas Pavlicek (Doug-fir), Adam Appich (Maple), Dr. Patricia Westerford, Neelay Mehta, Dorothy Cazaly Brinkman, and Ray Brinkman, all have interesting and sometimes tragic life stories that somehow connects them to trees. Their life stories are told in a captivating but fast paced manner that sometimes seemed compressed but for a good reason.
The book did not just tell us about the current personalities of the characters without giving the history. Our personalities are partially formed by our parents, grandparents, great grandparents, cultures far away from where we live, by nature and by trees. In some cases, the history of several generations was covered in a couple of pages. I am a curious person, and I found this kind of novel character development powerful and very entertaining.
In a fashion that reminded me of Stephen King’s the stand, the life events of the characters and their family history bring them together in the defense of old growth redwood forest in Oregon. There are also hints of paranormal phenomena. In Oregon, things get very wild and even violent and it became difficult for me to put the book down. It felt very real and very tense and mistakes were made, bad mistakes. The book is certainly a page turner.
The Overstory asks whether humans are the only ones that matter by challenging human-centered perspectives and exploring the lives, consciousness, and value of trees. The book shows that other beings have their own valuable and interesting experiences, and presents scientific ideas that trees have a form of communication and intelligence. I learned that trees communicate with each other through a network of fungi in the soil. By looking up the facts about this I found out that this was not fiction made up by the author. There is an entire new science on this topic called mycorrhizal ecology or biocommunication, sometimes referred to as the “Wood Wide Web”. Dr. Patricia Westerford is based on a real person, Dr. Suzanne Simard of the University of British Columbia. The book also points out that we humans do not understand the amount of destruction that we are causing to the world’s forests. This is a book that speaks for the trees, but in addition, the trees speak for us.
This is one of the most fascinating novels that I’ve read. It has an important message that some of us will understand but that some of us may not grasp. In any case, I can certainly understand the books popularity. I highly recommend it.
Leonberger Life 