The Overstory

By: Richard Powers

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2019

A monumental novel about reimagining our place in the living world, by one of our most "prodigiously talented" novelists (New York Times Book Review).

The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fable that range from antebellum New York to the late 20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

An air force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits 100 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.

These and five other strangers, each summoned in different ways by trees, are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest. There is a world alongside ours - vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

©2018 Richard Powers (P)2018 Recorded Books

Too long! I do not recommend.

This could have been a profound book if half of the book had been removed. The utter length made my listening a slough instead of a meaningful journey. Especially, during the first half, as soon as I was beginning to enjoy a particular character, boom—it was over & we were on to the next character. That grew tiring.

With some books, I am loathe to saying goodbye. With this book, I was relieved. And that’s too bad because the author did have some important things to say. But they got lost in the forest.

The ending gave little hope. I do not recommend this book. If it were revised & made more compact, that would be a different case.

Brilliant writing.......glad it's over

Just too highfalutin for me. Beautiful prose...the kind of writing you enjoy sitting in comfortable chair with a hard cover book. I listen to audible whenever I'm not doing something that requires focus/attention, like driving, waiting in lines, gardening, etc. For me this was definitely not an audible book - too esoteric, much symbolism/allegory, etc., I really had to pay attention. It was kinda like listening to T.S. Eliot while cleaning the bathroom. Some day I'd like to pick it up in hardcover and indulge myself.

Abridge me!

There is an important and powerful 12-hour story in this book... Unfortunately there are another 11 hours of florid ramblings which really need to be pruned. This is a book which would benefit greatly from abridgment.

Most thought provoking book I've covered in a whle

The book has a bit of a slow start, but it's absolutely worth pushing through until it picks up.

Hopefully, it will make you consider the world around you a bit more and become a better inhabitant as a result.

EPIC vantage point

Gratitude for the author who brought this tale into being. The perspective that I yearned for throughout this story was the Indigenous one, from the peoples in all the areas the trees have thrived. It was there in flashes, they were there as guides and powerful memories, but they are still there and here. It's the author's call of course, but the feeling all throughout this book is that the story is influenced by a collection of knowledge. If this story included the generational knowing of the people of these areas, that too would have added to the guiding light, providing tangible hope throughout the story. It would have changed it immensely, but it would bring critical balance to it. Still highly recommended.

Excellent reading.

Excellent reading. Amazing writing. Too long-- waters down impact. Insightful, poetic, important work. Highly recommend.

A phenomenon

Start with top notch narration, add a clever and inspiring concept, and finish off with gorgeous writing and you’ve got my favorite book of the year. Thoroughly worth investing your time and concentration.

stunning prose ruined by overdone voice acting

Really disappointing. Reading the book is a great experience, listening to the narrator ruins it. She has a pompous accent when narrating, and then uses painfully awkward and insulting accents for foreign and physically disabled characters. It's nearly unbearable.

Wonderful story….note about audio

Slow at times but definitely worth it. Beautiful beautiful story. I ended up listening to it at 1.2 speed as I found the narration a bit difficult esp when the impediment was simulated.

Wanted to like it

I’m an environmentalist. I wanted to listen to a story about the environment that isn’t sad. The story is a very realistic chronicling every step along the way of environmental destruction. I really thought it was going to take more of a uplifting turn but it never did. I honestly would not recommend it to anybody who already understands the tour that humans have taken on the environment, or to anybody who is already overwhelmed with watching our ecosystem die because of human greed.