The Overstory

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Powers, Richard	4-week checkout	On Hold Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Powers, Richard	4-week checkout	Due 05-05-2025
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Powers, Richard	4-week checkout	Due 05-22-2025
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Powers, Richard	4-week checkout	Due 05-02-2025
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Powers, Richard	4-week checkout	Canceled Transit
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Powers, Richard	4-week checkout	Due 05-09-2025
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Powers, Richard	4-week checkout	Due 04-30-2025
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Powers, Richard	4-week checkout	Due 05-12-2025
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Powers, Richard	4-week checkout	Due 04-25-2025

Roots -- Nicholas Hoel -- Mimi Ma -- Adam Appich -- Ray Brinkman and Dorothy Cazaly -- Douglas Pavlicek -- Neelay Mehta -- Patricia Westerford -- Olivia Vandergriff -- Trunk -- Crown -- Seeds.
A novel of activism and natural-world power presents interlocking fables about nine remarkable strangers who are summoned in different ways by trees for an ultimate, brutal stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The Overstory submitted by kimberlybalk on July 10, 2019, 9:36am This book was powerful and illuminating.

Sequoia-like in its ambition submitted by amy on July 21, 2019, 11:02am A hefty novel, with an ambitious and compelling narrative structure. Powers takes on the daunting task of criticizing contemporary society in a grand lyrical style and with an intellectual rigor that breaks new ground in environmental fiction. Here trees play a central role, with their haunting presence and power to move humans to pathos, reverence, and action.

extraordinary writing, imagery submitted by 21621031390949 on August 30, 2019, 11:38pm This book is a tour de force of prose. It tells the stories of several disparate individuals and then weaves their stories together, but the beauty is in the telling. The writing is lush, rich, with each word chosen carefully. The information about trees and forests is so dense, one has to read and re-read to catch it all. It is magnificent.

Update 2020: Remarkable book that I'm reading for the second time because there is so much to digest: multiple plot lines, beautiful writing and imagery, and so much botanical information! This is a book about ecology, climate change, and the environment which educates without being preachy. My only criticism of this book is that it is so long that many people will not read it.

Highly recommend!

The Overstory submitted by Clown81 on August 31, 2019, 8:27pm Forceful.

Highly Recommended! submitted by AGAPHD on June 20, 2020, 2:45pm I loved this! Beautifully written and a powerful meditation on our relationship with the environment.

Fascinating beginning that doesn't know how to conclude submitted by mowjac on August 28, 2020, 12:36pm Sensual, evocative writing in the early chapters rushes us into our characters (human and non) lives for a fantastic opening. Unfortunately, Powers' vision doesn't take us to his posited conclusion and instead leaves us in a chasm of disarray. I wish he had had the conviction to go where his opening projects, but he didn't. I found the latter part of the book falling on environmental rationalism and slogans rather than staying with the grief and loss our modern culture engenders.

Beautifully written submitted by cthrom on June 15, 2021, 8:25pm A marvelous novel worthy of its Pulitzer. The language is so delicate and exquisite -- I savored every paragraph. The through-line is extremely poignant. Highly recommended!

Long submitted by nmrhoads on August 9, 2021, 9:33pm Very long but so worth it. Amazing story that weaves everything together prefectly

Fantastic, someday classic. submitted by clk.9123 on August 21, 2022, 4:56pm This book is truly marvelous and well worth the length and time commitment to read. It will be a classic in the future, to be sure!

My favorite book. submitted by jrpolaczyk on June 11, 2023, 1:40pm I love this book. It has many characters and many inter weaving stories that surprise and inspire. It will change the way you think about trees and nature. More people need to read this one.

Perhaps overly ambitious submitted by khrobinson on July 11, 2023, 11:04pm I was interested in this novel because of its commentary on trees as a teacher/guide. The scope of the book was epic, drawing characters together across generations like the roots of a forest ecosystem, but I felt it was too long with too many story lines that were only minimally woven together. Less could have been more.

Interwoven submitted by kathscot on July 24, 2023, 7:50am The idea that we are all interwoven, including the trees, is a transforming concept.

Rich appreciation for nature, interesting set of characters submitted by timbresson on July 29, 2023, 4:47am Really it’s the attention to detail of nature that pulls you in to Richard Power’s story. The characters are a bit flat-ish being as that you jump around to so many of them. I do enjoy the interweaving nature but the complexity of their attitudes leave something to be explored. Regardless, it reads quick enough not to dampen the enjoyment.

Definitely 5 stars submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on June 13, 2024, 8:29pm There was a minute in the middle of this book when I thought I would probably give it 4 stars, and then I kept going and… can’t imagine why, given the whole, I would ever have thought that. It’s absolutely a 5 star book for me.

This book is brilliant. No wonder it won the Pulitzer Prize (as well as being nominated for or winning many other awards). In the first section (Roots), we meet nine central characters and get their histories, or sometimes several generations of their families’ histories as we learn about them. The only thing that ties these stories together is that somewhere in each, there will be at least one tree.

In the following sections of the book (Trunk, Crown, and Seeds), those nine characters’ lives slowly and inexorably come together. Different branches have subtle parallels. Threads are drawn with a deft hand. Some people come together early and have vast and life-changing effects on each other, and others have ripple effects from a distance. Everywhere there is the natural world, the slow and majestic growth of forests and trees, the wonder of natural systems, teaching and learning.

<u>The Overstory</u> teaches both natural history and US history without being preachy, letting the lives of the trees and those who love them, research them, plant them, live near them, and protect them tell readers what matters.

Make no mistake: this book is a commitment, both as a reader (it’s 500 pages) and because I’m not certain someone can come out of the last page feeling the same way about the natural world that they felt going into the first page. There are many different perspectives represented in this book, many different ways of loving the earth offered within the story, many different branches to take.

But the first next branch is to read (or listen to) <u>The Overstory</u>. I highly recommend it.

Beautiful book!I fell immediately in love with this book until about mid way through. submitted by bookher on June 22, 2024, 12:57pm The beginning of this book will just draw you right in but I struggled after about the half way point hoping it would get back to the detailed beautiful story development of the first half but it did not. I still highly recommend it because it has a very important message about trees, the earth and our vital human connection with them.

Okay submitted by Clare Snyder on July 29, 2024, 2:04pm The structure of this book is non-standard, it is like a tree with "roots", "trunk", "crown", and "seeds". This is creative, but my experience with this kind of creativity is that some sections are invariably better than others (and often the first section is the best). I think that is the case here. I liked the short stories about each character in the first chapter, but then felt like some of that setup didn't pay off in the end.

Wanted to love this, but… submitted by aminarce on August 16, 2024, 3:35am Really interesting premise about humanity’s relationship with trees throughout time, but often feels meandering and plodding. Some parts more compelling than others. Beautiful prose but often felt like a slog