Books About Trees Inspire Us to Protect Them

Richard Powers won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his tree-centric book, The Overstory. Read what Powers says about the books he relied on to weave his narrative. His book list is not exhaustive but it's a good place to start. To his list we add a few highly accessible, informative, and outstanding reads:

—Learn about the wood-wide web from the Canadian-based scientist who revolutionized our understanding about how trees in a forest interact—Suzanne Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.

—A book that draws from Simard’s research and the author’s own decades-long work in forests that will change how you think about trees—Peter Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees. 

—A nuanced, balanced, terrific read about big-tree ecology and logging and ecotourism conflicts on Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada—Harley Rustad's Big Lonely Doug.

—A gorgeously written wonder of a book about old-growth trees in British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands, a logger-turned-environmentalist, and a mystery—John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce.