With the sun out for what seems like longer than ever this school year, why not take a book out onto Chapel Lawn for some quality reading time? I have the perfect one for you: The Overstory by Richard Powers. I was gifted this book in January but didn’t start reading it until the long-awaited March break– and finished all 612 pages in two days. I loved it. The book begins by jumping from perspective to perspective, all entirely different stories, except that each one is––at its roots––connected to trees: a multi-generational flipbook of a rare American chestnut. A soldier miraculously saved by a tree. A scientist fascinated by the way trees communicate.
At first, I thought the book would be just some cute little stories about people and trees, but that could not be further from the truth. Around page 155, the stories begin to weave together and connect in ways that I would never have thought, and the book becomes pieces of a puzzle waiting to be put together, or rather, the branches of a tree that were there all along.
I’m a bit of a tree-lover myself. At camp last summer, I had the honor of meeting a woman named Ginny Geyer, a Maine Guide (outdoor professional licensed to accompany or assist others in the State of Maine while they are engaged in various outdoor activities such as boating, fishing and snowmobiling) and an alumnus at my camp. She came and talked to a group of us about trees and how they communicate with one another, sharing things like antibodies for diseases and signals through the air. Imagine my surprise when I read almost exactly the same thing in what became my favorite chapter in The Overstory! At that moment, I felt truly connected to the book.
However, you don’t have to be particularly interested in nature or the environment to connect to this book. Video games. Politics. Science. Spirit and religion. Painting and photography. Protest. I don’t say this often about books, but there’s truly something in “The Overstory” for everybody. Not only will your love for trees grow, but also your appreciation for the human connection to nature and your hope for this world.