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The Overstory

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A wondrous, exhilarating novel about nine strangers brought together by an unfolding natural catastrophe

An artist inherits a hundred 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. An Air Force crewmember in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan.

This is the story of these and five other strangers, each summoned in different ways by the natural world, who are brought together in a last stand to save it from catastrophe.

'Really, just one of the best novels, period' Ann Patchett


'The best book I've read in ten years' Emma Thompson


'Dazzlingly written' Robert Macfarlane


© Richard Powers 2018 (P) Penguin Audio 2018

Critics Review

The best book I've read in ten years. It's a remarkable piece of literature, and the moment it speaks to is climate change...
EMMA THOMPSON
Dazzlingly written... Among the best novels I've read this decade
ROBERT MACFARLANE, author of Underland
A novel about the natural world - trees specifically - and our power as human beings to destroy it or redeem it. It reminds me that we are all connected and that there is still time to make things right
TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage
An extraordinary novel... It's an astonishing performance... The Overstory leaves you with a slightly adjusted frame of reference
Guardian
Should be mandatory reading the world over
EMILIA CLARKE
On almost every page of The Overstory you will find sentences that combine precision and vision. You will learn new facts about trees... [An] exhilarating read
The Times
One of the most thoughtful and involving novels I've read for years... Extraordinary
Daily Telegraph
Absolutely blown away by this epic, heartbreaking novel about us and trees
EMMA DONOGHUE, author of Room and The Pull of the Stars
[A] majestic redwood of a novel... Combines the multi-narrative approach of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas with a paean to the grandeur and wonder of trees... It is fitting that it ends with a message of hope
Observer
A rare specimen: a Great American Eco-Novel... It will change the way you look at trees
Financial Times

User Reviews

Book 4.5
Narration 4.8
Author Richard Powers
Narrator Suzanne Toren
Duration 22 hours and 58 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781473566859
Format Audiobook
Publisher Random House
Genre Historical fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Environmental issues, Narrative theme: Politics, Trees, wildflowers and plants: general interest
Collections Recommended by The xigxag Ten
Availability AU, GB, IE
Rating
4.5 (4 reviews)
Narration
4.8 (4 reviews)

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