On the Heartbeat of Trees

First, the good: I learned a lot about trees and the forest. The bad: I couldn’t tell what the book was supposed to be. Was it about some specific aspect of trees and the forest? Was it meant to draw readers in toward learning more later? Was it an environmentalist text, a memoir, something else? I genuinely couldn’t tell. The writing on indigenous peoples in Canada felt particularly egregious, though I think Wohlleben simply doesn’t know enough about them, and there was a general naivety about the world that was touching but left the book feeling wishy-washy. I like his writing, and I’ve heard good things about his other books, but this one just didn’t do it for me. Better luck next time.