Overstory by Richard Powers

 

Published: 2018, Penguin

Genre: Fiction

Themes: Trees and forests, logging, destruction of ecology

My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤

I felt I ought to go outside to get my photograph for this book because the whole purpose of it is to remind us that we are not the only living things that matter on our planet.

Richard Powers gives us the stories of nine people whose lives have been altered by trees, but those stories are really only secondary to the message in the book.

THERE IS ONLY ONE EARTH AND WE ARE MESSING IT UP

I don't remember a time when I read something that made such an impact on me.  By the time I was a third through the book I was starting to see the damage here in my town - let alone the rest of the world!  Trees hacked back because the fallen leaves are a nuisance, grass dug up and replaced with plastic grass that doesn't breath, concrete covering more and more space... I could go on.  What most people don't realise is that nature knows what it is doing if only we would let it.

I could go on ad nauseum, but maybe this quote from a book within the book will send the message using words in a far more convincing way than I ever could:

'No one sees trees.  We see fruit, we see nuts, we see wood, we see shade.  We see ornaments or pretty fall foliage.  Obstacles blocking the road or wrecking the ski slope.  Dark threatening places that must be cleared.  We see branches about to crush our roof.  We see a cash crop.  But trees - trees are invisible.'

Another  couple of quotes:

'Property and mastery: nothing else counts.  Earth will be monetized until all trees grown in straight lines, three people own all seven continents, and every large organism is bred to be slaughtered.'

'You and the tree in your backyard come from a common ancestor.  A billion and a half years ago, the two of you parted ways.  But even now, after an immense journey in separate directions, that tree and you still share a quarter of your genes....'