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160th out of 921 books
—
1,085 voters
The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring
Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained–the coast redwood trees,
Sequoia sempervirens. Ninety-six percent of the ancient redwood forests have been destroyed by logging, but the untouched fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods hav...more
Hardcover, 294 pages
Published
April 10th 2007
by Random House
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Oct 24, 2011
Joseph
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Botanists and lichens
Shelves:
non-fiction,
book-club
The idea that there is an entire unexplored world lurking in the canopy of what's left of our nation's redwood forests is intriguing. It seems unfathomable that in our modern life, with all our GPS systems and Google maps, there are still areas of planet Earth just waiting to be explored.
The Wild Trees is at its best when describing this hidden world. Sadly, that's not what the book is about. This is really a story about the people involved in the exploration of that world, with a few interestin...more
The Wild Trees is at its best when describing this hidden world. Sadly, that's not what the book is about. This is really a story about the people involved in the exploration of that world, with a few interestin...more
7 likes · like · see review
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The book was good enough to get me to explore deeper into the dense Jedediah Smith Redwoods and find the Titans myself. Read the book early January, and found the Grove of Titans and Lost Monarch on January 15, 2008.
See > M.D. Vaden's hunt for The Wild Trees Redwoods
Unlike the book, I supplied one color photo of a titan. That's one desire for that book, which was lacking. If even but one nice color photograph.
There was more in the book than I expected about people, but after I read it, it was...more
See > M.D. Vaden's hunt for The Wild Trees Redwoods
Unlike the book, I supplied one color photo of a titan. That's one desire for that book, which was lacking. If even but one nice color photograph.
There was more in the book than I expected about people, but after I read it, it was...more
The sections about the redwoods in this book were 5 star for me--but then, trees have always fascinated me, and Preston brings his intense focus on detail to these giants.
However, the sections on the PEOPLE in this book moved it down to a 2 star for me, since FAR too much time was spent on the soap opera details of their lives rather than on the trees themselves. And their lives seemed self-centered and crass.
Stephen Sillett is the first holder of the endowed Chair in Redwood Forest Ecology at...more
However, the sections on the PEOPLE in this book moved it down to a 2 star for me, since FAR too much time was spent on the soap opera details of their lives rather than on the trees themselves. And their lives seemed self-centered and crass.
Stephen Sillett is the first holder of the endowed Chair in Redwood Forest Ecology at...more
5 likes · like · see review
This isn't a book for everyone, but I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a fast paced(although somewhat tedious at times) book. It is a window into the lives of those whose passion is climbing trees, and not just any trees - the tallest trees in the world, the coastal Redwoods of northern CA.
The cover caught my eye and then as I read the jacket, I knew I had to read it, as the setting is near where I grew up. The book is the story - over about a twenty year period - o...more
The cover caught my eye and then as I read the jacket, I knew I had to read it, as the setting is near where I grew up. The book is the story - over about a twenty year period - o...more
Think the trees you see on the tours of Redwood National Forest are the granddaddies of them all? Guess again.
A really interesting look at the group of tree-groupies (arborists, naturalists, botanists, and so on) who dedicate themselves to identifying, documenting and preserving the Giant Redwoods and other behemoth trees. The story gets a bit hokey when Preston starts recounting the personal lives and relationships of and between his characters. It seems like quite a detour, is unnecessary and...more
A really interesting look at the group of tree-groupies (arborists, naturalists, botanists, and so on) who dedicate themselves to identifying, documenting and preserving the Giant Redwoods and other behemoth trees. The story gets a bit hokey when Preston starts recounting the personal lives and relationships of and between his characters. It seems like quite a detour, is unnecessary and...more
Jan 27, 2009
Patrick Gibson
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
true adventure ecology lovers
Shelves:
truth_sort-of,
testosterone
Any book beginning with a twenty-something taking a leak along the side of the road has my attention. I’m big on the personal freedom to express oneself in the art of peeing outside—for indeed it is a talent many are afraid to exhibit, which has nothing to do with this book, except for the scene in the opening paragraphs.
Richard Preston is a serious fellow. His books tackle big somber issues. This one branches away from killer plagues and toxic-terrorism for a much more esoteric look at one of t...more
Richard Preston is a serious fellow. His books tackle big somber issues. This one branches away from killer plagues and toxic-terrorism for a much more esoteric look at one of t...more
The Wild Trees by Richard Preston is an interesting book, combining unique historical and scientific facts with a travel narrative. This combination makes for good books in most cases; however, not this one. The author’s purpose is unclear throughout the book. Rather than creatively and strategically blending narrative with fact, he wrote them completely separate, which truly ruined the book for me. Sometimes, it seemed as though the author was attempting to entertain an audience with fun, ofte...more
This book was so refreshing after reading Preston's other books about horrible diseases and the descriptions in there that make your skin crawl. Instead, this was a story about a strange group of people who really love the largest and tallest trees in the world (including himself). As someone who has never climbed a tree, this made me curious to try it if I could cure my fear of heights. The stories about the people were sometimes interesting and sometimes annoying, but I appreciated knowing mor...more
Great book about the noble Redwoods and a few interesting people who study them, and end up becoming quite emotionally attached to the trees.
There's some science, too! I loved learning about all the incredible biology. On the tops of these trees, the climbers discover "gardens of ferns, fruiting huckleberries, flowering rhododendrons, fully grown bay laurels. Miniature salamanders live in water captured by the giant ferns, as do tiny crustaceans. Preston describes a 60-foot wide platform of bran...more
There's some science, too! I loved learning about all the incredible biology. On the tops of these trees, the climbers discover "gardens of ferns, fruiting huckleberries, flowering rhododendrons, fully grown bay laurels. Miniature salamanders live in water captured by the giant ferns, as do tiny crustaceans. Preston describes a 60-foot wide platform of bran...more
I usually love any story about trees and thought a book regarding redwoods and climbing them would be fascinating. The author's description of the redwood groves was outstanding and often throughout the reading of this book, I found myself going back in my memory to the one and only time out to a retreat center in California that I journeyed to, which just happened to be near a small grove of Redwoods. The author did a fabulous job of putting the details of these groves down on paper. Preston is...more
I knew oceans are under explored and little understood. Living in the west, I know the secrets of western deserts, mountains, caves and canyons still belong to the intrepid explorer. I didn’t know the tops of the world’s tallest trees, that are within miles of California towns, have a biological diversity that rivals the Amazon, and are also little touched and unexplored. The country that has flown to the moon and developed robots and computers, has only recently developed methods of climbing 35...more
Richard Preston is a science writer with a gift for turning complex biology into riveting page-turners. In The Wild Trees, he describes old-growth forests, mostly redwoods, that have managed to evade the timber industry's blades and still live along the coast of northern California. Preston assures us that, amazingly, until the past two decades the ecosystem formed by the intertwining limbs of these ancient, gargantuan living things had never really been studied. Preston introduces us to several...more
1 like · like · see review
I had never imagined that there are people whose lifelong passion is to study and climb redwood trees.... specifically Titan redwoods which are the world's longest (and some of the oldest) trees measuring in at a minimum height of 360 feet. I fell in love with redwoods and tree climbing through this book, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning about something that I knew nothing about and that I found fascinating. That said, the material is fantastic, and had it been in the hands of a skillful writer...more
I love trees. Having grown up in the country in Louisiana it comes naturally, but I find that New Yorkers, for the most part, have this same affinity. (Horror rocks the city when longhorn beetles are discovered.) Therefore no surprise that I was drawn to The Wild Trees which takes as its subject the last remaining stands of giant redwood trees, scattered along the California coast, and those few passionate climbers and naturalists that have discovered the very tallest and live to protect them. I...more
One year my daughter spent most of her summer vacation climbing in and hanging out in one of the ash trees on our lot. I thought of her as I read this book. Only the people in this book climb up and hang out, do research in and get married on the Giant Redwoods in the temperate rain forest of northern California.
Reading the second chapter, I had to close the book and take several deep breaths. Just reading about people swinging around at 150 feet in the air (in this case, without any climbing eq...more
Reading the second chapter, I had to close the book and take several deep breaths. Just reading about people swinging around at 150 feet in the air (in this case, without any climbing eq...more
This was the most fascinating read I've had in a long time. I loved learning about the old-growth forests of the northwest (which I previously knew nothing about). I loved learning about the science behind forest ecology (which I knew nothing about). I felt inspired by the people who developed ways to climb these giant trees and figured out that there's a whole world up there to explore. In short, I felt like I really learned a lot and enjoyed it too!
2 likes · like · see review
I'm rating this book a generous three stars based on a combination of the okay quality of the book and my abounding enthusiasm for its topic. I'm heading out to Northern California myself at the end of the week to see and hike in the Redwoods for the first time. I was excited before I read this, and I'm even more excited after reading it -- all in all not a bad sign for Preston's book.
The Wild Trees details the search for extraordinary redwoods in the largely unexplored deep pockets of old growt...more
The Wild Trees details the search for extraordinary redwoods in the largely unexplored deep pockets of old growt...more
This books is truly jaw dropping. It is about the ancient and tallest redwoods on earth and how it wasn't until the late 1980s and early 1990s that (thanks to some college kids who loved to climb) that botanists came to realize the enormous bio-diversity alive in the uppermost branches and multiple trunks of the centuries old redwoods. Huckleberries - salmon berries - rhododendrons - salamanders and countless lichens and ferns and tons of soil and water. And earthworms and still no idea how they...more
“The Wild Trees” is ostensibly about redwood trees, but Preston focuses largely on the life stories of a few individuals who have become fascinated with them. This is the first book I’ve read by Richard Preston, but evidently he’s mainly a fiction writer. This shows itself in his use of a narrative, in which he creates a story line based on the lives of Stephen Sillett and Michael Taylor and their efforts to find the tallest tree and to study the redwoods, respectively. The upside of this approa...more
This is a book about the people who explore the remote world of Tall Trees, primarily the Redwood Sequoias of the pacific northwest. Exploring the tops of theses tall trees is similar to exploring the depths of the oceans. It is incredibly dangerous, very few people will ever have a view of this world above the world and you have to be just a tad bit off center to even want to explore this isolated world.
Incredible as it may seem, there are actually gardens growing amongst the tall trees. The so...more
Incredible as it may seem, there are actually gardens growing amongst the tall trees. The so...more
Two hundred and fifty feet up, the light became brighter, although I still couldn't see the sky, and the crown of Adventure billowed into a riot of living branches. By then, the ground had disappeared completely, hidden below decks of foliage in the lower parts of the canopy. This was the deep canopy -- a world between the ground and the sky, an intermediary realm, neither fully solid nor purely air, an ever-changing scaffold joining heaven and earth, ruled by the forces of gravity, wind, fire,...more
This book is for anyone who ever enjoyed climbing trees, exploring unknown, uncharted and nearly impassable forests, extreme sports, scientific research--or all of the above. Great story of men using modern climbing gear to ascend over 300 feet into the heights of the world's tallest trees. High in the canopy they discover a new ecosystem, complete with plants and animals unknown on the ground. The climbers sometimes spend nights tied into the tree-tops, nurturing the occasional budding romance,...more
Feb 05, 2009
Bookmarks Magazine
added it
Richard Preston, whose previous nonfiction thrillers include The Hot Zone (about the Ebola virus) and The Demon in the Freezer (about smallpox; ***1/2 Jan/Feb 2003), takes a botanical detour in The Wild Trees. Most critics praised this noteworthy, if somewhat less sensational, effort. Yet while some relished the offbeat characters, the action-packed sequences, and Preston's personal climbing experiences, others found fault with Preston's detailed descriptions of his subjects' personal lives, his
...more
Richard Preston really does a good job capturing the characters' passion for wanting to contribute to something great. These guys obviously dedicated a lot of time and effort to the cause of discovering more about the redwood groves in northern California. It was fascinating to share their adventures, heartaches, and vision of redwood groves.
One thing that stood out to me was the fact that redwoods used to be found all over the world under a much different climate. There was evidence found in o...more
One thing that stood out to me was the fact that redwoods used to be found all over the world under a much different climate. There was evidence found in o...more
The title doesn't lie, this is a book about passion and daring. Passion for trees and daring to take the risks involved in climbing them for study. And maybe it was the right kind of book for me because by the end I found myself wanting to climb a big tree and see what was up there.
Unfortunately the book is limited in scope. There is very little information outside of the stories about a bunch of people who like to climb trees and how they came together from different backgrounds to find themsel...more
Unfortunately the book is limited in scope. There is very little information outside of the stories about a bunch of people who like to climb trees and how they came together from different backgrounds to find themsel...more
Like anyone who has ever seen a redwood tree, I am in awe of them. This book has made me even more so, because it taught me many fascinating facts about them. For example:
-A coast redwood can grow from a seed to 50 feet tall in 20 years. At around the age of 800 years--which is the end of its youth--it may reach its maximum height of 300-something feet tall, or 30-some stories.
-Redwoods are some of the most structurally complicated living organisms that have ever been discovered. They can reite...more
-A coast redwood can grow from a seed to 50 feet tall in 20 years. At around the age of 800 years--which is the end of its youth--it may reach its maximum height of 300-something feet tall, or 30-some stories.
-Redwoods are some of the most structurally complicated living organisms that have ever been discovered. They can reite...more
Oh a great book about the giant redwoods of california. I was shocked to learn that the tallest tree in the world was only discovered in 2007,and most of the next tallest were discovered in the late 90's. It probably should be a trip that everyone takes, to see the tallest living things on Earth. I was in SF recently, and the tallest building I was near reaching into the sky was still only half as tall as the tallest tree in California. A tree nearly 400ft tall just seems unimaginable. Find some...more
I found the author's writing a little difficult to get through at times, but well worth it once I spent the time. The parts I liked best were those about the trees themselves. I had not realized how fully developed the ecosystems high up in redwood (and other) canopies become. Preston's descriptions really bring it home. Soil collects in the high altitudes of a treetop (say, 200 feet up) and other plants will grow in it. Not to mention the many species of lichens that turn out to be a possibly c...more
I have lived in Northern California all my life and spent some time working in state parks in the Santa Cruz mountains, never once considering all that was going on a few hundred feet above my head! I wasn't sure what to expect - this is a book about trees after all - but, I found the subject to be very engaging and hard to step away from. I sat down and finished the last 200 pages of the book in one sitting, which is something I haven't done in a long time.
I would definitely recommend this book...more
I would definitely recommend this book...more
A community of renegade tree climbers and botanists, college drop outs, PhD students and faculty, who dedicate their life to finding, documenting and studying the world's tallest redwoods. These climbers are daring, often climbing trees over 300 feet tall, once in the tree canopy they will eat, spend the night sleeping in a hammock, study lichen and insects, have untethered sex at 400 feet, and sometimes falling out of the trees. Preston sometimes seems unsure if his "story" is the about the tre...more
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| Wild Trees | 3 | 37 | Nov 09, 2012 11:00pm |
Richard Preston is a journalist and nonfiction writer.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
More about Richard Preston...
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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“Time has a different quality in a forest, a different kind of flow. Time moves in circles, and events are linked, even if it's not obvious that they are linked. Events in a forest occur with precision in the flow of tree time, like the motions of an endless dance. (p. 12)”
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