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oddyman's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.0
joheg's review against another edition
4.0
Beautiful but speculative.
As always, Peter Wohlleben writes beautifully and animatedly about nature as as he observes it. It is utterly fascinating, but the facts are often stretched to fit subjective opinions. This is not a thorough scientific work, but a wonderful and poetic appreciation of nature and trees - how they live, communicate and support each other, and of all the myriad of tiny life forms that lives with and on them.
As always, Peter Wohlleben writes beautifully and animatedly about nature as as he observes it. It is utterly fascinating, but the facts are often stretched to fit subjective opinions. This is not a thorough scientific work, but a wonderful and poetic appreciation of nature and trees - how they live, communicate and support each other, and of all the myriad of tiny life forms that lives with and on them.
bamboobones_rory's review against another edition
slow-paced
2.75
Interesting but like blog snippets, not any information in depth about how it all works! Some of the science is more speculation that fact. Some of it is super cool and actually downplayed how cool it is!!!
teadiprima's review against another edition
4.0
A few years ago I read The Overstory, a polyphonic novel structured around 9 characters whose lives have been forever changed by trees. Some of the stories had elements of magical realism, some were more realistic, and one was based in truth. It was a solid book (a little too long and too many characters in my opinion) but the best part about it were the non-fiction elements that strung all the chapters together - the fact that trees are more sentient than we recognize.
The Hidden Life of Trees is like a non-fictional counterpart of The Overstory diving into all the ways trees can interact with one another, communicate, and protect one another to survive. It talks about forests as one single organism rather than a collection of isolated species.
Not the kind of thing I would normally pick up but was really interesting.
The Hidden Life of Trees is like a non-fictional counterpart of The Overstory diving into all the ways trees can interact with one another, communicate, and protect one another to survive. It talks about forests as one single organism rather than a collection of isolated species.
Not the kind of thing I would normally pick up but was really interesting.
cubanpete's review against another edition
There's a lot of cool knowledge I got from this book but the problem is I don't know what to believe. The referencing is very thin, with a lot of wild claims (e.g. the disappearance of "deer, wild boar, carnivores, and even most birds wouldn't leave any yawning gaps in the ecosystem"), and some of them I've found to be erroneous (e.g. chaffinch calls predicting weather). Another thing I found annoying is the language ("eager beavers", "Spruce & Co", etc.) although this is probably the translator's fault. I loved the author's obvious passion for the forest, I just wish his claims were checked and referenced.
storytold's review against another edition
4.0
Well, I smashed this in one sitting. Trees are friends to you and me.