nut free nerd

“Until today, he has never planted anything. But Now, that next best of times, is long, and reunites everything.”

There are good books, and then there are those that make you fall in love with reading all over again, that make you savor each word and feel for each character. The Overstory is one of those incredible books.

This novel is structured like the concentric rings of a tree, starting broadly by introducing each main character individually and then growing narrower as the characters and the story lines converge in the center. The overarching story is detailed and carefully crafted. It made me want to chart it out to see all of the patterns hidden in the way the story lines are woven into each other. The writing itself is beautiful. I could really feel the particularity with which each word was chosen.

And then there are the trees! While some characters seem born innately passionate about preserving forests and caring for trees, others become so through events in their childhoods or unexpected incidents later in life. Their overwhelming admiration for and love of trees and woods and branches and leaves infects every part of the novel, almost as though the trees themselves are collectively an additional character in the mix. And when something happens to those characters — either the humans, or the trees, or both — you, as the reader, feel that loss intensely. The Overstory is one of the most powerful, moving pieces of writing regarding environmentalism and conservation that I’ve ever read.

There’s so much I want to say about this novel, but I feel like no review I could write would do the book justice. So I’ll leave you with my wholehearted recommendation: This is an amazing book.

Any recommendations for other books by Richard Powers that I should read? I’d love to know.

Take care xx