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Tree: A Life Story
“Only God can make a tree,” wrote Joyce Kilmer in one of the most celebrated of poems. In A Life Story, authors David Suzuki and Wayne Grady extend that celebration in a “biography” of this extraordinary — and extraordinarily important — organism. A story that spans a millennium and includes a cast of millions but focuses on a single tree, a Douglas fir, Tree describes in poetic detail the organism’s modest origins that begin with a dramatic burst of millions of microscopic grains of pollen. The authors recount the amazing characteristics of the species, how they reproduce and how they receive from and offer nourishment to generations of other plants and animals. The tree’s pivotal role in making life possible for the creatures around it — including human beings — is lovingly explored. The richly detailed text and Robert Bateman’s original art pay tribute to this ubiquitous organism that is too often taken for granted.
200 pages, Paperback
First published September 16, 2004
83 people are currently reading
1468 people want to read
About the author
David Suzuki
116 books250 followersDavid Suzuki is a Canadian science broadcaster and environmental activist. A long time activist to reverse global climate change, Suzuki co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990, to work "to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that sustains us." The Foundation's priorities are: oceans and sustainable fishing, climate change and clean energy, sustainability, and David Suzuki's Nature Challenge. He also served as a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association from 1982-1987.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews
August 11, 2008
If I ever got close enough to David Suzuki, I would jump his bones. I've always maintained this fact, but listen to him dirty talk:
The female cone of the Douglas-fir remains receptive to male pollen grains for twenty days, until about the end of April. Once a pollen grain has slipped down the smooth surface of the seed-cone bracts, it becomes enmeshed in the small, sticky hairs at the tip of the female ovule. For two months it luxuriates on this pubic patch while the ovule's labia swell around it; slowly the ovule engulfs the grain, which sinks into it like a croquet ball into a soft, silken pillow. By early May, an opening develops and the ovule becomes a vulva; the sticky hairs contract into the secret entrance...and the pollen grain is drawn in to begin its ascent toward the ovule's nucellus...as the pollen grain travels, it becomes elongated into a stiff rod...The leading tip of the pollen tube meets, gently nudges, and finally penetrates the nucellus.
*fans self*
If first year plant biology was so articulately taught, I may have earned more than a D.
This book is fascinating and beautiful, showing the interconnectedness of all things. It is also best read if mentally narrated in Suzuki's voice.
The female cone of the Douglas-fir remains receptive to male pollen grains for twenty days, until about the end of April. Once a pollen grain has slipped down the smooth surface of the seed-cone bracts, it becomes enmeshed in the small, sticky hairs at the tip of the female ovule. For two months it luxuriates on this pubic patch while the ovule's labia swell around it; slowly the ovule engulfs the grain, which sinks into it like a croquet ball into a soft, silken pillow. By early May, an opening develops and the ovule becomes a vulva; the sticky hairs contract into the secret entrance...and the pollen grain is drawn in to begin its ascent toward the ovule's nucellus...as the pollen grain travels, it becomes elongated into a stiff rod...The leading tip of the pollen tube meets, gently nudges, and finally penetrates the nucellus.
*fans self*
If first year plant biology was so articulately taught, I may have earned more than a D.
This book is fascinating and beautiful, showing the interconnectedness of all things. It is also best read if mentally narrated in Suzuki's voice.
June 9, 2014
There is an idea that if you know something well enough—if you spend some time learning about it and seeing all of its internal and external connections—you cannot help but loving it. I’m not entirely sure this is true, though I’d like to believe it is. I think it is an important aspect of environmentalism and likely the reason why so many scientists become conservationists: sometimes it is only by careful and deliberate study that the inherent value of an organism or system becomes apparent.
I also think this is the point of good nature writing: making the reader take a long look at something. Really study it. Get to know deeply. By doing so, rational analysis becomes something more: it becomes a form of art, of contemplation, maybe even a form of worship. It certainly can become a form of excellent literature and, in the case of this book, an opportunity for combining knowledge, connection, and empathy.
Trees fascinate me. They are ubiquitous and prosaic, and yet they’re also ancient, silent, and somehow unknowable. Have you ever stopped and simply considered how large they are? How a single specimen can tower over your home physically and cast its sheltering shade over your entire life temporally? And yet, how much do most of us really know about them? What’s going on inside the bark and beneath the soil? What unseen networks do they play a role within?
I write about trees. I titled my first collection of short stories after them. And for a long time I’ve been looking for a book that captures what they are and more importantly teaches me things about them that I didn’t know. This book, by David Suzuki and Wayne Grady, went a long way toward filling that tree-shaped hole in my head I’ve been walking around with. Grady, a Canadian science writer, and Suzuki, a zoologist, academic, and environmentalist, team up to do something that at first blush appears fairly simple: they want to write the life story of a single tree, in particular a Douglas-fir growing outside a British Columbian cabin retreat.
Of course it’s not that simple. Trying to focus on one aspect of nature—let alone a single tree—is like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole. Grady and Suzuki use the life cycle of a single Douglas-fir, from germination to death, as a lens to explore trees in general, the zoology and botany of British Columbia, and the importance of forests throughout the world. Yet the single tree itself functions effectively as a unifying thread throughout the book, and of course along the way we get a wealth of information about the evolution, reproduction, growth, morphology, taxonomy, and mystery of trees.
Tree, A Life Story is a wealth of information, yet it is consistently readable and compelling. As with any good nature book, we learn the object itself and we also learn the impossibility of seeing the object alone or isolated. We get a glimpse of the essential connectivity of trees with each other, with wildlife and fungi, and with other plants. What was most surprising to me—apart from the new facts I picked up, like the fact that scientists are still not quite sure they have a handle on how trees pull water and nutrients up hundreds of feet into the air from roots to canopy—was the way the tree itself became a character of this story. With trees, the authors explain, there is no definite moment of death. A tree’s life is in many ways a long dying. But reading the final acts of this particular tree’s life, I found myself—in a twist on much conservationist writing that witnesses to the loss of entire species or habitats—mourning an individual. Trees are monuments, they’re like rooted ships sailing not through space but through time. And we so often only see still images of their lives. To see the whole story spelled out from beginning to end was quite wonderful and surprisingly moving.
Trees still fascinate me. After reading this book I know them a little better. I also know (as with so much) that to truly understand them I’d need to devote a career to their study. But every little bit helps. Now maybe I love them a little better as well.
I also think this is the point of good nature writing: making the reader take a long look at something. Really study it. Get to know deeply. By doing so, rational analysis becomes something more: it becomes a form of art, of contemplation, maybe even a form of worship. It certainly can become a form of excellent literature and, in the case of this book, an opportunity for combining knowledge, connection, and empathy.
Trees fascinate me. They are ubiquitous and prosaic, and yet they’re also ancient, silent, and somehow unknowable. Have you ever stopped and simply considered how large they are? How a single specimen can tower over your home physically and cast its sheltering shade over your entire life temporally? And yet, how much do most of us really know about them? What’s going on inside the bark and beneath the soil? What unseen networks do they play a role within?
I write about trees. I titled my first collection of short stories after them. And for a long time I’ve been looking for a book that captures what they are and more importantly teaches me things about them that I didn’t know. This book, by David Suzuki and Wayne Grady, went a long way toward filling that tree-shaped hole in my head I’ve been walking around with. Grady, a Canadian science writer, and Suzuki, a zoologist, academic, and environmentalist, team up to do something that at first blush appears fairly simple: they want to write the life story of a single tree, in particular a Douglas-fir growing outside a British Columbian cabin retreat.
Of course it’s not that simple. Trying to focus on one aspect of nature—let alone a single tree—is like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole. Grady and Suzuki use the life cycle of a single Douglas-fir, from germination to death, as a lens to explore trees in general, the zoology and botany of British Columbia, and the importance of forests throughout the world. Yet the single tree itself functions effectively as a unifying thread throughout the book, and of course along the way we get a wealth of information about the evolution, reproduction, growth, morphology, taxonomy, and mystery of trees.
Tree, A Life Story is a wealth of information, yet it is consistently readable and compelling. As with any good nature book, we learn the object itself and we also learn the impossibility of seeing the object alone or isolated. We get a glimpse of the essential connectivity of trees with each other, with wildlife and fungi, and with other plants. What was most surprising to me—apart from the new facts I picked up, like the fact that scientists are still not quite sure they have a handle on how trees pull water and nutrients up hundreds of feet into the air from roots to canopy—was the way the tree itself became a character of this story. With trees, the authors explain, there is no definite moment of death. A tree’s life is in many ways a long dying. But reading the final acts of this particular tree’s life, I found myself—in a twist on much conservationist writing that witnesses to the loss of entire species or habitats—mourning an individual. Trees are monuments, they’re like rooted ships sailing not through space but through time. And we so often only see still images of their lives. To see the whole story spelled out from beginning to end was quite wonderful and surprisingly moving.
Trees still fascinate me. After reading this book I know them a little better. I also know (as with so much) that to truly understand them I’d need to devote a career to their study. But every little bit helps. Now maybe I love them a little better as well.
December 5, 2012
4.5 stars.
What a gorgeous, gorgeous book. A beautiful balance between the woo-woo postulating of, say, a David Abram and the narrow reductionism of, say, a Carl Sagan (not that I don't kiss every page these men have ever written, just that sometimes they both make me a very cranky monkey). The story is told with grace and fluidity, as colorful a cast of supporting characters as will be found in any novel, and a satisfying tear-jerker of an ending.
Now I'm going to say something that may make readers of this review irate. I sure become irate when other reviewers say it, and, frankly, I make myself irate writing it: I wanted something more out of this book. Some extra something that would make this a 5-star book. And I have no idea what that "something" is. If I come up with it, y'all'll be the first to know.
What a gorgeous, gorgeous book. A beautiful balance between the woo-woo postulating of, say, a David Abram and the narrow reductionism of, say, a Carl Sagan (not that I don't kiss every page these men have ever written, just that sometimes they both make me a very cranky monkey). The story is told with grace and fluidity, as colorful a cast of supporting characters as will be found in any novel, and a satisfying tear-jerker of an ending.
Now I'm going to say something that may make readers of this review irate. I sure become irate when other reviewers say it, and, frankly, I make myself irate writing it: I wanted something more out of this book. Some extra something that would make this a 5-star book. And I have no idea what that "something" is. If I come up with it, y'all'll be the first to know.
October 31, 2025
"When we see an ancient tree, we are looking at a living archive of history, of weather, of time itself."
December 20, 2019
Ako volite drveće, prirodu i životinje, onda će vam ova knjiga biti zanimljiva i od koristi. Mene je podsetila na knjigu "Tajni život drveća" (Piter Voleben), mada je daleko bogatija stručnim objašnjenjima, ali je manje okrenuta ka široj čitalačkoj populaciji (veliki broj stručnih izraza). U knjizi se prati život drveća, od trenutka kada kao seme proklija do trenutka kada od starosti (ili bolesti) padne na zemlju. Lepo je objašnjen proces kako je drveće povezano sa svojom okolinom, kako se razmenjuju materije, koja je uloga ostalih stanovnika šuma, zašto su neke stvari povezane i zašto se dešavaju određeni procesi u prirodi. Mogu reći da sam, kao neko ko je obožavao biologiju u školi, uživao dok sam čitao priču o drveću. Neke stvari u ovoj knjizi su mi pomogle da mnogo bolje razumem prirodu i svet oko mene.
June 23, 2012
This is a short, elegant and beautiful [i]belle lettres[/i] essay on Douglas-fir forests. It consists of dozens of vignettes exploring aspects of one protagonist tree's ecology - its birth in the ashes, its mycorrhizal partnerships with fungi and other trees, the creatures that nest in and around it, and the things it must fight to survive. These facts were largely familiar to me, in form and outline if not in specifics. But the articulation was among the finest I've encountered, for elegance and simplicity if not in detail and wonder. The rest of the book explored aspects of the history of science, also from the point of view of this tree - focusing at one point, for instance, on the eponymous botanist David Douglas.
I did learn a couple of interesting facts. Apparently, spotted owls have been known to carry live snakes to their nests to defend them from thieves. And it never occurred to me to highlight how key windstorms are in shaping, literally, a forest. Nor how mycorrhizal sharing from adult to baby trees is often a literal parental nursing story, since the "apple" doesn't fall far from the tree and is thus able to "suckle" from its mother's fungal teat. It's interesting that bumper crops of seeds coincide with peaks in the sunspot cycle. He also cited a neat stable-isotope ecology experiment that showed the immense nitrogen contribution made by salmon to the river valleys where they spawn.
I want to emphasize: if you didn't know much about trees, forests, and what wonderfully awe-inspiring treasures science has discovered about them, then this book is an eye-opening Wunderkammer. Please foist it onto your high schoolers and such.
I did learn a couple of interesting facts. Apparently, spotted owls have been known to carry live snakes to their nests to defend them from thieves. And it never occurred to me to highlight how key windstorms are in shaping, literally, a forest. Nor how mycorrhizal sharing from adult to baby trees is often a literal parental nursing story, since the "apple" doesn't fall far from the tree and is thus able to "suckle" from its mother's fungal teat. It's interesting that bumper crops of seeds coincide with peaks in the sunspot cycle. He also cited a neat stable-isotope ecology experiment that showed the immense nitrogen contribution made by salmon to the river valleys where they spawn.
I want to emphasize: if you didn't know much about trees, forests, and what wonderfully awe-inspiring treasures science has discovered about them, then this book is an eye-opening Wunderkammer. Please foist it onto your high schoolers and such.
April 7, 2019
Excellent book from start to finish
A brilliant insight into the detailed life of a Douglas-fir. It includes a great deal of information about other species that life around this tree. A very good read. Would love to read again!
A brilliant insight into the detailed life of a Douglas-fir. It includes a great deal of information about other species that life around this tree. A very good read. Would love to read again!
March 8, 2025
While “a biography of a single Douglas fir tree 🌲 “ might not be a page-turner, I found it charming and full of surprises.
Reading thjs made me see “trees” less as a group noun and more as a collective of individuals, each with their own story. That change in perspective feels lovely and enriching, and I’m better for it.
Reading thjs made me see “trees” less as a group noun and more as a collective of individuals, each with their own story. That change in perspective feels lovely and enriching, and I’m better for it.
May 25, 2013
This is an outstanding ecological book. The main theme is the life story of a Douglas Fir tree from seed to decay but Suzuki encompasses a wide swath of fascinating biological and ecological detail along the way. A must read for all tree huggers.
June 10, 2017
How can a writer explain how trees function – their genes, leaves, decay – without turning it into a collection of unrelated facts? Suzuki, a noted ecologist, has woven all this into a story, as he calls it, readable and highly informative. While his focus is on the life of one tree, a Douglas-fir, he explains at the start that this could equally well apply to a maple or an oak. Along the way he shows the importance of trees in human cultures in history. The plight of the spotted owl becomes emblematic of the losses we are inflicting upon old-growth forests.
This book explains so much in a limited space, all understandable by the non-scientist. As a complementary way to approach a related subject, “Forest Primeval,” by Chris Maser, is a fine choice. Suzuki’s book has a little more emphasis on the basics of botany, while Maser pulls back to show the trees along with their companion organisms in the forest of the Pacific Northwest. Read both.
This book explains so much in a limited space, all understandable by the non-scientist. As a complementary way to approach a related subject, “Forest Primeval,” by Chris Maser, is a fine choice. Suzuki’s book has a little more emphasis on the basics of botany, while Maser pulls back to show the trees along with their companion organisms in the forest of the Pacific Northwest. Read both.
dnf-abandoned
March 2, 2017I got stuck at around 50% (though, to be fair, I saw signs it was over for me around 30%).
This is fascinating if you have a love of botany and particular types of trees (the Douglas fir). The authors are stunningly smart, and able to pull from a wide variety of biology in the formation of this book.
Unfortunately for me, I thought it would be a little more broad and readable to an, ahem, unscientific mind. I was looking for life metaphors and got so much more.
p.s. It is my practice to not rate books I do not finish.
This is fascinating if you have a love of botany and particular types of trees (the Douglas fir). The authors are stunningly smart, and able to pull from a wide variety of biology in the formation of this book.
Unfortunately for me, I thought it would be a little more broad and readable to an, ahem, unscientific mind. I was looking for life metaphors and got so much more.
p.s. It is my practice to not rate books I do not finish.
March 11, 2019
I am quite disappointed in this book. I expected it to focus more on the subject tree through its life cycle. Instead, the writers spent about 2% writing about said tree, and the rest of the book was general, broad swaths of scientific talk about trees, photosynthesis and other aspects of other plants.
I did not finish the book, but got about 75% through it. I think there could have been a lot more focus on the one tree itself.
I did not finish the book, but got about 75% through it. I think there could have been a lot more focus on the one tree itself.
May 28, 2020
Very interesting book and well-written. It does mostly a good job of explaining things for the average layperson.
I'm deducting one star because I wanted to read a biography of a single tree, and this really wasn't that. The book was conceptually promising, but in reality Tree has an expansive, meandering lens, giving us the biographies of some lesser-known botanists and naturalists from around the world, diving into other insect and animal species, outlining the basics of salmon life cycles and ant-aphid relationships, etc. All of this is great, but it's not about the tree. I found myself wishing much more of the book was about trees and that the authors had dared to dive into the fictional realm of imagining the very specific things that might happen to a very specific tree (because the cover promises it to be "a life story"!). The book should more accurately be called Trees and Other Meanderings. All well and good, but not as advertised.
I'm deducting one star because I wanted to read a biography of a single tree, and this really wasn't that. The book was conceptually promising, but in reality Tree has an expansive, meandering lens, giving us the biographies of some lesser-known botanists and naturalists from around the world, diving into other insect and animal species, outlining the basics of salmon life cycles and ant-aphid relationships, etc. All of this is great, but it's not about the tree. I found myself wishing much more of the book was about trees and that the authors had dared to dive into the fictional realm of imagining the very specific things that might happen to a very specific tree (because the cover promises it to be "a life story"!). The book should more accurately be called Trees and Other Meanderings. All well and good, but not as advertised.
May 29, 2024
It's surprisingly NOT boring for the life of a tree.
March 8, 2020
I did enjoy all the detailed ways that they could describe a tree.
May 15, 2018
3.5 stars tending towards 4. NF book group theme - trees. I read this as an actual paper book, for a change. Sorry tree.
I had thought this would be a quick read - maybe a week, so I could get onto the other book I checked out... but no... I read a little of bit most days but I didn’t really get into a flow with it until near the end. It had a LOT of detail. That was good, but I found it hard to concentrate for long. Especially when paragraphs got into a lot of science + Latin names + measures in metric meters (with conversions to imperial) but then a quote would be in imperial (so this time the meters would be bracketed).
But it was a good book. A history of a specific Douglas-fir tree in a PNW forest illuminates the forest ecosystem and the wonders of trees, with a little history and a lot of science (beginning with life taking hold on land). There were some really cool details and some quite poetic and amusing bits.
Btw Douglas-fir is apparently the correct way to write the name of the tree - it is not in fact a fir (or a spruce or a pine - it’s a false-hemlock, so, yeah, not a hemlock either. Don’t ask me what it is. If the answer is known, it wasn’t shared in this book.)
Beautiful illustrations.
I had thought this would be a quick read - maybe a week, so I could get onto the other book I checked out... but no... I read a little of bit most days but I didn’t really get into a flow with it until near the end. It had a LOT of detail. That was good, but I found it hard to concentrate for long. Especially when paragraphs got into a lot of science + Latin names + measures in metric meters (with conversions to imperial) but then a quote would be in imperial (so this time the meters would be bracketed).
But it was a good book. A history of a specific Douglas-fir tree in a PNW forest illuminates the forest ecosystem and the wonders of trees, with a little history and a lot of science (beginning with life taking hold on land). There were some really cool details and some quite poetic and amusing bits.
Btw Douglas-fir is apparently the correct way to write the name of the tree - it is not in fact a fir (or a spruce or a pine - it’s a false-hemlock, so, yeah, not a hemlock either. Don’t ask me what it is. If the answer is known, it wasn’t shared in this book.)
Beautiful illustrations.
January 29, 2015
Is three stars unfair? The book certainly achieved its goal of conveying vastness of the trees and forests themselves, the timescales they operate on, and the interconnected lives and forces that define and sustain them. Generally, structuring the book around time worked to that effect. There were some very eloquent passages, and a great deal of new-to-me information about Douglas-fir trees and forests.
But, there were also times when casual word choices and strained metaphors undermined the depth of preceding passages. Some new bits of information were anchored in the [life-cycle/one-tree-bio/history-of-botany] framework, but many others dissolved into trivia as we jumped between topics that seemed to emerge on a whim or from a checklist.
Overall, it's a quick and engaging read, likely to enhance appreciation and understanding of this ecosystem, and ecology as a whole, for those who do. I only wish the book more closely reflected its subject in form, that the authors has taken a bit more time to pull all the elements together so that they could nourish and transform each other, as they do in the forest.
But, there were also times when casual word choices and strained metaphors undermined the depth of preceding passages. Some new bits of information were anchored in the [life-cycle/one-tree-bio/history-of-botany] framework, but many others dissolved into trivia as we jumped between topics that seemed to emerge on a whim or from a checklist.
Overall, it's a quick and engaging read, likely to enhance appreciation and understanding of this ecosystem, and ecology as a whole, for those who do. I only wish the book more closely reflected its subject in form, that the authors has taken a bit more time to pull all the elements together so that they could nourish and transform each other, as they do in the forest.
February 24, 2011
Trees are some of the longest living creatures on the planet. Given its large size and prolonged existence a single tree can often have a vast impact on millions of other plant, fungal and animal lives over the span of its life, creating entire tree-based ecosystems. In Tree: a life story, by David Suzuki and Wayne Grady, the full account of a single 260 foot tall Douglas-fir tree is told, from its birth following a forest fire until its eventual demise and collapse 700 years later. The titular tree lived along a creek in the woods on Mr. Suzuki's property near Vancouver and while much of the details are deduced - due to a paucity of reliable eye-witnesses - the story reveals much of the complexities and intricacies of the tree's life, fully supporting the argument for the tree as the most appropriate symbol for all of life itself.
You can read the rest of my review at Tree.
You can read the rest of my review at Tree.
January 15, 2010
Got this book last x-mas and it finally made it to the top of the pile. I was excited to read a book by David Suzuki - the most well-known environmentalist in Canada, but must admit being a little disappointed by this book. It was not what I expected. I thought it would be more about the main character of the book - the ancient Douglas Fir tree - but it wandered off into what was happening in the world at different points in the tree's life. I know this helps us understand and comprehend the age of the tree and that it is more permanent than we will ever be, but...
The illustrations were great, though, and it is an interesting concept for a book.
The illustrations were great, though, and it is an interesting concept for a book.
November 14, 2018
I was searching for a book by D.T. Suzuki at my local library, and this popped up; it sounded interesting, so I picked it up on a whim. Turned out to be one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read, both informative and entertaining. I think I learned more about ecology, botany, and natural history from these 180 pages than any science class I've ever taken, or in my two years doing conservation work. Suzuki does an amazing job of putting scientific fact within its wider contexts, making for an engrossing read. He accomplishes the goal stated in his introduction--to "restore a layperson's sense of wonder and questioning"--masterfully. I can't recommend this book enough.
September 11, 2022
This was a wonderful story of a Douglas-fir tree from cradle to the grave. I did learn a lot; however, I did come away with lots of questions. Did I miss why the Douglas-fir is called Pseudotsuga which is Latin for false hemlock. It looks nothing like a hemlock! I can understand for example False Solomon's Seal Maianthemum racemosum being called that because of its superficial resemblance to Solomon's Seal Polygonatum spp. What were the 21 other names that Douglas-fir was given before settling on this one? What is the 7-year cycle and the 21-year cycle of the tree? I need to know!
December 11, 2008
I LOVED this book. I'm sad now I finished as I could keep reading it for ages. But it's not for everyone. I laughed, I cried, and expanded the mind, but to be totally honest, you have to be the type of person who enjoyed high school biology. It's not Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, and you will be learning a bit more about fungi than you expected. But, there's much more to it than that. Those interested in ecology or just the unbelievable interdependency and underestimated intelligence of nature will have much to enjoy.
April 21, 2013
This is a very special book about the life of one Douglas-fir tree and its ecosystem, the historic moments around the world during the tree's long life, and the development of our scientific understanding of plants during those centuries. It's impressive how David Suzuki fit all of that into one small book, while sprinkling each chapter with amazing facts about trees. The occasional drawings added to the beauty of this book. I would have appreciated diagrams to help me understand botanical terms.
June 5, 2016
Such a beautiful, treasured book of my favourite inhabitants of the planet. I have always asked the question : how does a tree revert to it's known silhouette having been cut down, reshooting (flushing?) and then it's sometimes impossible to tell that this has occurred. David Suziki thrilled me by addressing this same question, but answered by words to the effect, when we understand that, we too will be able to re-grow our limbs..
June 23, 2018
The original
The Hidden Life Of Trees
. Published before, and coming back into print after, this is a peak CanLit take on the tree publishing trend: Suzuki, Grady, Bateman. And it recreates the half-millennium life of a west coast tree and the ecosystem around it.
Informative throughout, lyrical in places, and definitely worth a look.
Informative throughout, lyrical in places, and definitely worth a look.
November 1, 2018
Such a good reminder of how amazing trees and forests are, and how vital they are to our planet. This was a little science-y in parts, which caused some glazing over of my eyes, but in general, very easy to read and understand. And I learned more things about trees! This book left me with a warm feeling and a smile on my face just thinking about how fascinating our forests are, full of all kinds of important creatures and critters.
April 26, 2012
A beautiful book about the way everything in nature, including us, is interconnected. The life of a tree, and the ongoing cycle of life and death, is presented in an easy to read style that left me feeling even more appreciative of these beautiful living organisms that we so take for granted...
December 5, 2013
This the story of a Douglas fir tree in California from the time it starts growing until five hundred years later. I liked how the authors blended human history along with what was happening to the tree in its growth. I knew the tree had to die, but when that happened and the aftermath was a surprise.
April 3, 2014
This book really puts your life in perspective and demonstrates the importance of forests and their role in wildlife populations. I really enjoyed the last chapter as they write about the destruction of these forests caused by humans and how we really need to start making changes to sustain these old growth forests.
October 8, 2014
By focusing on the lifetime of one tree David Suzuki and Wayne Grady show the intricacies and interrelatedness of nature. These two topics were explored and explained well, making the point that the natural world can be resilient to a point but it is also fragile and the tipping point teeters on a sharp edge.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews