From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

The Overstory

Richard Powers

Start date: September 15, 2019

Finish date: October 1, 2019

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Donna

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Reading List

* The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
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What Members Thought

Oct 23, 2019 Lauren rated it liked it

2.5 stars

In an interview, Powers said he had a life-changing experience, bordering on the spiritual, when he encountered a giant redwood for the first time. That experience infiltrates the first half of the book like a mysterious undercurrent, pulling the reader along through a series of compelling character studies that read like short stories, all linked in some way by trees. I was deeply hooked and marveled at his virtuosity, both as a wordsmith and as a story builder.

Then at roughly the hal ...more

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Sep 18, 2019 Barbara rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Powers' writing about trees was the strongest part of this book. It's what I will remember and the reason I gave it four stars. His ability to communicate believable, interesting characters was weak. He also needed a better editor. ...more

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Sep 27, 2019 Jane rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: recentfiction, political, environmental-issues

I both loved and was incredibly frustrated by this book. No doubt that Richard Powers is brilliant. If anything he is brilliant in the way some of his characters are. I think of Adam and his childhood curiosity and intense scientific interest. And also Patricia whose life work is devoted to trees, and then gathering seeds and storing them so that possibly, after most of the trees and most of the humans have disappeared, some humans will discover her seed bank and begin to reforest the earth.

It’s ...more

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