Reviews

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

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abbydee's review against another edition

I read this out of a sense of duty. Every once in a while books appear that are so in my wheelhouse they cannot be ignored, and I feel obligated to read them, which of course makes me drag my feet about reading them, and I probably enjoy them less as a result. What I’m saying in a roundabout way is that I’m a scientist and a writer and I tend not to like science writing. I am sincerely interested in Suzanne Simard’s life and research, but I find everything writers do to make science more interesting to a general audience really boring. Like, “I continued walking through the woods…” Hate it. But let us review the things I loved, namely: 1) Suzanne Simard, devoted researcher, gifted communicator, teacher, thinker, mother, skier, cancer survivor, and general badass; 2) this “complexity science” of interspecies connection and communication, always totally fascinating and quite well explained. I found the last few chapters strongest. Simard finds the events of her life to parallel her research questions in both obvious and subtle ways, and I admire the book that subconsciously recognizes how a person’s personal experience might be reflected in the questions they choose to ask, the hypotheses they formulate.

dachre's review against another edition

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hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

princesspeaches's review against another edition

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Not in the mood for memoir style. Just wanted the facts. So listened to test all instead

camoo3032's review against another edition

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informative reflective slow-paced

2.5

This book is an autobiography interdispersed with science. Although both were interesting, the way they were spread throughout the book disrupted the flow of it. You never knew what the next page would contain (personal life or method of an experiment)

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