The Overstory

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The Overstory

By: Richard Powers

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A wondrous, exhilarating novel about nine strangers brought together by an unfolding natural catastrophe

An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. An Air Force crewmember in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan.

This is the story of these and five other strangers, each summoned in different ways by the natural world, who are brought together in a last stand to save it from catastrophe.

Richard PowersSuzanne TorenPenguin Audio

Fiction

Genre Fiction

Historical Fiction

Literary Fiction

Metaphysical & Visionary

Political

Inspiring

Heartfelt

Thought-Provoking

Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Metaphysical & Visionary Political Inspiring Heartfelt Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

"Really, just one of the best novels, period." (Ann Patchett)

"The best book I’ve [listened to] in ten years." (Emma Thompson)

"Dazzlingly written." (Robert Macfarlane)

Most relevant

In a way, this novel tells us more about the understory than The Overstory. In spite of painting a world, ours, on the brink of disaster, it gives us defiance against so called ‘human progress’, sensitive intelligence towards and solidarity with Nature, a generous love of humanity, and, most of all, the possibility of redemption for our crimes against the Earth. And trees are the giant heroes of this story in an astonishingly empathetic, intelligent and generous way.
The rich, poetical, inventive, beautiful language of Richard Powers is a joy to listen to. And the reader conveys all these and the strength of the story perfectly.
Some readers might find this novel periphrastic and over long, but, in my opinion, this format could be seen as an almost pictorial representation of the shape and nature of trees themselves - trunks, growing, expanding, intertwining branches, leaves and roots.
Wonderful and necessary reading.