What We’re Reading - The Overstory

Photo courtesy of Amazon.

The author of The Overstory, Richard Powers, writes this novel with eight short stories that root people to the plants around them. The human characters and setting for each short story are diverse and each storyline is provoking. But the plants take the crown (see what I did there...?) for the way through which the plants express feelings of joy (through the flowers they create) to feelings of sadness (being wrecked with disease). This book is a “big-kid” version of The Giving Tree. It is a reminder that nature’s earthly gifts cannot be around forever if we continue this disconnect with the natural world around us.

I have been reading this book (from our local library) while on a hammock in my backyard. The hammock is being braced by two old, large Silver Maple trees. I think the trees know I am reading about plants. There tends to be a comfortable summer breeze and my hammock gently sways. My mind seems more intrigued by plants as I continue to read: wondering which tree made this library book; the trees that became my closet doors (am I ever going to get around to painting them?); what fruits and veg are in my refrigerator right now and where did they originally come from? I know where the hot peppers, eggplant and summer squash came from (stomach rumbling). The Bowers School Farm of course! FYI: Agricultural Operations Coordinator, Abby King, is caring for and producing a plethora of plants to grow and sell at the Farm Store.   

Anywho, back to the book. My imagination starts to branch out as I visualize a book scene where three sisters are underneath a fragrant mulberry tree in their family's backyard. My brain images are going to get some help from video images. There is a budding new television series in the works (again, with the quick puns). Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will be executive producers of The Overstory as a Netflix television series. Hugh Jackman also serves as an executive producer of the project, currently in development. Do wolverines like mulberry trees? I don’t know. But Jackman is a big fan of the book too. 

The book is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and is 502 pages in length. 

Show us what nature-themed books you are reading and tag us on our social media sites: Facebook @JohnsonNatureCenter and Instagram @johnsonnaturecenterbhs

Submitted by Cass Arsenault, Lead Naturalist, August 2021