Absolutely Stunning

Read at the speed of trees.

Plus 9 more words that i have no interest in using.

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Powerful story

This is great. Beautifully told, you follow the lives of a handful of characters held together by trees. Recommend.

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Brilliant conceptually and a finally crafted work

Richard Powers takes our current situation of environmental destruction and possible planet collapse and weaves A storyline of six characters which has a allegorical feel to it.
His Style is masterful and he also manages to bring A lot of factual data particularly about trees.
I would highly recommend this book. The reading style In this book in audible is subtle and evokes clearly each character.

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Devastatingly beautiful

This has to be in my top 3 books of all time. It's written so beautifully and with such a powerful and descriptive narrative. Would recommend to anyone.

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A Holy Book

For some there is only one valid 'holy book', The Bible. A compendium of wisdom, history, prophecy, metaphor and polemic, the Bible is of course but one of many 'holy books' adrift in the ocean of humanity. Comparisons include the vast cannon of works that underline Hinduism, Buddhist literature and we haven't even reached the borders of China yet.

But 'holy books' (general guides to life. living, human psychology and the mysteries of existence) aren't some static fixture from a particular time in human history, they appear all the time in all sorts of forms and among the most recent batch I might dare to include Richard Powers 2018 novel The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

This sprawling novel explores a disparate group of people and their relationship to trees and is both exhilarating and frustrating. Powers is a writer, scientist, musician........ it's a long list so let's just say he's an all round Renaissance man and The Overstory is the work of one so inclined and examines biological science, history, scientific speculation, polemic, metaphor, psychology, prophecy and so on.

It is inspiring, transformative (in regards to how it might change the way your mind considers plant life), thrilling, gripping and as I said, somewhat frustrating. Here I am referring to an overladen cast, with one or two characters that may be superfluous to the task and whose undercooked presence sucks the life out of the narrative flow from time to time.

The novel is also a tad top heavy and though Powers manages the unwieldy task of weaving the threads together, it could have done with a little more 'finishing', but small niggles.

In the same vein of fictional inquiry aka 'holy books' like Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Richard Powers The Overstory is a plea for the planet, this living breathing network of biological complexity that has managed sentience among a bewildering host of achievements (certainly some references to evolutionary philosopher Pierre Teilhard De Chardin at work here).

Powers has a way with words and the result is a beautifully crafted and somewhat poetic novel that leaves the reader better for the experience and in my case, chagrined at my lack of insight aka trees. Certainly a book for our time, maybe for the ages.

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Didn’t think I could love trees more than I did...

...Until I listened to this. I ended up buying the paperback book too when I was halfway through because I want my family to read it.
Extremely poignant, sad and inspiring story.

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A masterpiece, masterfully read aloud.

I feel deeply enriched by this book, which contains several lifetimes worth of wisdom, and was a wondrous pleasure to read. I prefer to read than listen, but this was great for tired eyes, and in fact the woman who performed the reading made it come alive, while making the reading experience feel like I was sharing it with someone.

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Sensational

What a wonderful story. Never take a tree for granted again, let alone get rid of one.

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Beautiful book

This is the best book I came across in a while. Such a beautiful language and story full of sorrow and hope.
Amazing book.

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A masterpiece

A thought-provoking and moving work of literature.
This book will change the way you view life.

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