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Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard
9 reviews
scmiller's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Violence, and Colonisation
Moderate: Cancer, Death, Misogyny, Racism, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Dementia and Pregnancy
Violence/injury/extermination of natural lifecamoo3032's review against another edition
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)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer and Medical content
Minor: Child abuse, Death, Misogyny, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail
redheadorganist's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
2.0
I did not enjoy the book, but I think it is still an important read. If you are interested in ecology or forestry, this will be more up your alley.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism and Grief
Moderate: Cancer
Minor: Pregnancy
sramac's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer
Minor: Death, Sexism, Vomit, and Pregnancy
aisabel's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism
Moderate: Cancer, Death, and Pregnancy
jazzyinthewild's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
After discovering the mycorrhizal networks that lie beneath our feet, connecting the trees to one another through their root systems, Simard dedicates her life to understanding these connections & what it means for the future of our forests.
She discovers that through this fungal network (‘wood wide web’) trees share water, nitrogen and carbon with each other. The ‘Mother Trees’ being the oldest and largest in the forest, can tell which seedlings are their own kin and nurture them throughout their life, providing them with food and water - exactly like us humans.
‘These old trees are mothering their children’
‘The Mother Trees’
Throughout the book she recounts her field experiments and her findings, explaining everything really thoroughly and in a way that is so easy to follow.
Along the way she battles logging policies, like the ‘free to grow’ method, proving them ineffective & unnecessarily damaging to the ecosystem. She shares the sexism she was faced with, being a woman in a male dominated sector trying to tell the men they were doing it wrong, and how most of the men were incapable of listening to her despite her solid research.
Simard also shared her struggles of being a mother, going through divorce & fighting off cancer whilst dedicating her life to her research, always longing to be amongst her trees. She finds herself learning important lessons from the Mothers, guiding her to better connect with family, deal with her illness & pass on her wisdom to her two daughters.
‘When Mother Trees die, they pass their wisdom to their kin, generation after generation, sharing the knowledge of what helps and what harms, who is friend or foe, and how to adapt and survive in an ever-changing landscape. It’s what all parents do.’
Simard’s work has completely changed the world’s view on trees & forests. Her research has and will continue to allow us to take a deep dive under the humus, through the soil and down into the fungi coated roots of our Mothers to learn from them & for them.
Finding The Mother Tree is such a beautiful book. I would say it’s a cross between a nature memoir, a scientific journal & a love letter to the trees - similar to Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
The whole feeling of the book transported me into the depths of a Douglas Fir forest sitting around a campfire on mossy rocks (keeping an eye out for bears), with Simard chatting me through her life working in the trees adding in little snippets of her family life & heritage.
This book has changed the way I view trees, and I will never be able to walk through a forest the same way again. I recommend this to everybody, nature lover or not.
Content Warnings
Minor: Cancer, Sexism, and Pregnancy
purplepenning's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer and Death
Moderate: Cursing, Misogyny, Sexism, Grief, Pregnancy, and Alcohol
Minor: Animal cruelty, Dementia, and Colonisation
hmatt's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.25
This book was... not what I expected.
I have been on a tree-book kick lately, and I was excited to learn about the relationships between trees in what the title would suggest is an accessible way. Unfortunately, I found a lot of the writing that described these natural relationships to be laden with scientific jargon. I think it may be more easier for folks with even a 101 undergraduate science background, or people who have read more tree-books than I have, to understand, but it left me with my eyes glazing over.
These sections were interspersed between personal autobiographical details. One thing to know going into this read is that these personal sections are not limited to anecdotes or career-specific stories. They actually make up a large chunk of the book. In my opinion, these inclusions were a bit much. I thought it necessary and interesting to learn about how the author's career developed and how she struggled to be taken seriously in her field, but I didn't care for the larger inclusions about her family and personal illness (in this context, at least). To me, these sections distracted from the main focus of the book. I actually would have been interested in reading an autobiography from the author, but as a separate book without the forced parallels she tries to draw between human relationships and natural relationships. There's a case to be made that there are significant parallels in our relationships, I do believe that, but I found the tonal shift between the science talk and the personal talk too jarring to be convincing. The personal/casual writing style in these bits actually didn't work for me on its own, either.
Okay last thing I'll rag on the book for: it falls victim to the pitfalls of "we-let-the-author-narrate-the-audiobook". I talk about this in all my reviews of autobiography/memoir. It's book suicide like >80% of the time. This author even discusses how bad they are at public speaking in the book.
All this said, it's a book I didn't hate. I think, as I mentioned, that some people will be more equipped than I am to take a lot of interesting information from it. I learned some things about trees, albeit some pretty basic things. I'm happy to see that the physical copy of the book has plates with photos - I find these enhance the read. The photo captions are some of my favourite parts of the book. I would have liked to see more (any) diagrams to help illustrate some of the processes described, too. I appreciated the upfront and recurrent acknowledgement of Indigenous knowledges and expertise in this area, too.
I have been on a tree-book kick lately, and I was excited to learn about the relationships between trees in what the title would suggest is an accessible way. Unfortunately, I found a lot of the writing that described these natural relationships to be laden with scientific jargon. I think it may be more easier for folks with even a 101 undergraduate science background, or people who have read more tree-books than I have, to understand, but it left me with my eyes glazing over.
These sections were interspersed between personal autobiographical details. One thing to know going into this read is that these personal sections are not limited to anecdotes or career-specific stories. They actually make up a large chunk of the book. In my opinion, these inclusions were a bit much. I thought it necessary and interesting to learn about how the author's career developed and how she struggled to be taken seriously in her field, but I didn't care for the larger inclusions about her family and personal illness (in this context, at least). To me, these sections distracted from the main focus of the book. I actually would have been interested in reading an autobiography from the author, but as a separate book without the forced parallels she tries to draw between human relationships and natural relationships. There's a case to be made that there are significant parallels in our relationships, I do believe that, but I found the tonal shift between the science talk and the personal talk too jarring to be convincing. The personal/casual writing style in these bits actually didn't work for me on its own, either.
Okay last thing I'll rag on the book for: it falls victim to the pitfalls of "we-let-the-author-narrate-the-audiobook". I talk about this in all my reviews of autobiography/memoir. It's book suicide like >80% of the time. This author even discusses how bad they are at public speaking in the book.
All this said, it's a book I didn't hate. I think, as I mentioned, that some people will be more equipped than I am to take a lot of interesting information from it. I learned some things about trees, albeit some pretty basic things. I'm happy to see that the physical copy of the book has plates with photos - I find these enhance the read. The photo captions are some of my favourite parts of the book. I would have liked to see more (any) diagrams to help illustrate some of the processes described, too. I appreciated the upfront and recurrent acknowledgement of Indigenous knowledges and expertise in this area, too.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Misogyny, Sexism, and Medical content
Moderate: Death, Dementia, Grief, Pregnancy, and Alcohol
maddox22's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer
Minor: Chronic illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Medical content, Grief, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Colonisation