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The Genius of Trees
- Author
- Harriet Rix
- Narrator
- Harriet Rix
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publish Date
- 7 August 2025
- Run Time
- 10 hours 1 minute
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2026*
The Genius of Trees tells the mind-expanding global story of the inventive and astonishing ways trees learned to shape our natural world.
Over hundreds of millions of years, from prehistoric forests to the trees around us today, we see trees using fire as a reproductive tool, harnessing large mammals to spread their seeds (but poisoning smaller, less useful mammals), and splitting rock to create fertile ground in barren landscapes.
Because trees, we discover, manipulate fundamental elements, plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, and even humankind to achieve their ends. From the laurel cloud-forests of the Canary Islands to the magnificent sex-shifting oaks of Iraq, from the giant sequoias of California to the carbon-spinning junipers of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border – trees sculpt their environments.
At once transporting and expert, The Genius of Trees gives us hope for the future. It enables us to see trees, for the first time, not as victims but as agents of change in a grand ecological narrative – and as leading actors in the great drama of life on earth.
‘Wondrous. Gives us trees as we've never seen them before’ ISABELLA TREE, author of Wilding
‘Exceptional’ ROBIN LANE FOX, Financial Times Gardening Columnist
'Full of wonder and revelation ... Highly recommended' SUE STUART-SMITH, author of The Well Gardened Mind
'If I was dazzled by nature and in awe of trees before, I now know how much we are indebted to them’ KIRSTY WARK, Television Presenter & Journalist
© Harriet Rix 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
Critics Review
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Sublime … Through the scenes we glimpse an Indiana Jones figure who is both an eminent, travelling scientist and a born writer … Dazzling … Non-fiction rarely sees a debut like The Genius of Trees. It is a true masterpiece
Daily Telegraph, 5 stars
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A mind-blowing and erudite account of how trees created the world around us ... Harriet Rix presents trees as an awesome force of nature
Guardian
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Very few book reviewers are so captivated that they read the book carefully from end to end - not once, but twice. That is my boast about this extraordinary first work from Harriet Rix ... Rix has given us a completely new vision of how trees came to dominate our continents
Country Life
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Extensively researched [and] elegantly written ... A satisfying read. Trees emerge as entities which are just as dynamic as animals - including, dare one say, humans
Literary Review
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You’ll never look at a tree the same way again after reading this dazzling book
Daily Telegraph, *Books of the Year*
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A profoundly inventive exploration of the science of trees
Independent
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A wondrous spreading canopy of a book that gives us trees as we’ve never seen them before: as dynamic forces, founders of our world, and agents of their own destiny - as well as ours. This is science writing at its best - beautifully explained, brilliantly written and perception-changing
Isabella Tree, author of Wilding
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An exceptional book. Up to date scientifically, beautifully clear for all of us, it changes our entire view of trees while carrying us to other worlds and times. Enchantingly written, it has personal touches which unite science, travel and fine literature and lead us by the hand through woods we never understood before
Robin Lane Fox, historian and gardening correspondent for the Financial Times
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Ambitious and stunningly expansive ... Few come better qualified or more passionate than Rix, a biochemist and tree science consultant, who makes this subject utterly compellingly
Daily Mirror
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A compelling journey of a book, full of wonder and revelation. Highly recommended
Sue Stuart-Smith, author of the Sunday Times bestselling The Well Gardened Mind
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Harriet Rix
- Narrator
- Harriet Rix
- Duration
- 10 hours 1 minute
- Release Date
- 7 August 2025
- ISBN
- 9781529941210
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Random House
- Genre
- Trees, wildflowers and plants: general interest, Popular science, Ecological science, the Biosphere, The environment, Earth sciences, Biochemistry, Biogeography
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2026*The Genius of Trees tells the mind-expanding global story of the inventive and astonishing ways trees learned to shape our natural world.Over hundreds of millions of years, from prehistoric forests to the trees around us today, we see trees using fire as a reproductive tool, harnessing large mammals to spread their seeds (but poisoning smaller, less useful mammals), and splitting rock to create fertile ground in barren landscapes.Because trees, we discover, manipulate fundamental elements, plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, and even humankind to achieve their ends. From the laurel cloud-forests of the Canary Islands to the magnificent sex-shifting oaks of Iraq, from the giant sequoias of California to the carbon-spinning junipers of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border – trees sculpt their environments.At once transporting and expert, The Genius of Trees gives us hope for the future. It enables us to see trees, for the first time, not as victims but as agents of change in a grand ecological narrative – and as leading actors in the great drama of life on earth.‘Wondrous. Gives us trees as we've never seen them before’ ISABELLA TREE, author of Wilding‘Exceptional’ ROBIN LANE FOX, Financial Times Gardening Columnist'Full of wonder and revelation ... Highly recommended' SUE STUART-SMITH, author of The Well Gardened Mind'If I was dazzled by nature and in awe of trees before, I now know how much we are indebted to them’ KIRSTY WARK, Television Presenter & Journalist© Harriet Rix 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
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