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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Showing 2 of 428 topics — 16,892 comments total

Reading List

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last updated Jun 20, 2025 08:37AM

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What Members Thought

Aug 09, 2018 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: booker-winners-and-listed, own, reviewcopy, read2018

This amazing book connects specific trees to people or families and then the stories come together and morph into being about the environment, how trees relate to each other, and this underlying theme of personal and natural histories that always play out. Decisions have long-reaching consequences, etc. The first section had me in tears about Chestnut trees. All I wanted to do when I reached the end was go back to the beginning.

I started this as a review copy but bought my own hardcover before ...more

144 likes · Like · see review

Oct 24, 2019 Clifford rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reading-liberally, novels

This is a fascinating book with agenda: we're fucking up the planet in the name of "progress." Furthermore, the people who try to do something about it are persecuted (and prosecuted). It's hard to disagree with that, unless you assume, as some do, that destruction of the environment is inevitable and that human invention will give us ways to cope (although the book suggests we're not capable of dealing with the catastrophe we're creating.

Having said that, the book is confusing, with loads of ch ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

May 27, 2023 Loretta rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks

I can absolutely see why it won the Pulitzer, but it ultimately left me dissatisfied. The first half - the "roots" part - was by far the strongest. The trunk part was pretty good until it started to get a bit tooooo didactic and moralizing. I also started to get itchy with the representation of disability and the ongoing utter lack of representation or inclusion of the peoples who actually had been coexisting with this natural world in North America since before the white folks arrived. He repea ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 14, 2020 Joyce rated it liked it

Shelves: 100-nyt-books

The first section contains some of the most beautiful writing I have enjoyed in awhile. It gets a little wobbly later on.

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May 17, 2020 Warren rated it it was amazing

I will never look at nature the same.

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Jun 05, 2020 Andi rated it it was amazing

One of the most incredible books I’ve ever read. The writing is lyrical and beautiful. But it’s the structure and the shape of the story itself that will have me thinking about this book for a long time b

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