The hidden life of trees

Peter Wohlleben explores why forests are important and how trees communicate through the wood wide web, as opposed to our world wide web. Peter also explores the concept of symbiotic relationships between trees, explaining the reasons why they do it, even if the trees are of different species. Finally the author explains why tree leaves are green, silver birches bark is light coloured and the speed water and nutrients move in tree trunks.

2 stars makes it seem like I hated this book, but it’s more that it’s not for me. The right person can get more out of it. For me, I was largely bored but came across something interesting once in a while.

Per usual with nonfiction, I didn’t like the structure here. It’s a collection of random thoughts which didn’t help my concentration or ability to learn something.

I liked learning that some forest fires are necessary, but we have messed up that process. I also thought it was interesting that our attempts to “help” trees by creating what seem to us to be ideal environments have failed - Nature does what it does for a reason. We really have a lot of hubris

When I saw the title I was half afraid it would be a woo book, as it reminded me of an experiment where someone hooked up a lie detector to a plant, which is rather nonsensical. Thankfully, it was not!
It was pretty fascinating, actually, I'll never look at plants the same way again.

I loved this book.
The love that the author has for trees comes out so clearly, and the stories he tells are so informative that you can't help but see trees differently.
It helps that our house is surrounded by forest; now I can't wait until Spring to start looking for the things I learned from this book, even though the forest round here is a very different mix of species.

Who knew trees had such secrets? According to Wohlleben, the trees not only knew, but felt good about it. Many fascinating details here.

I did enjoy the conversational style of this book and how the author anthropomorphizes trees to bring them closer to our understanding, while basking in the awe of their differences.

But I just didn't find the sentences flowed well, making it difficult to sustain attention and interest when reading on a crowded bus on my way to and from work.

This isn't to say that it isn't a worthy read, if you are into trees. There were many spots of illumination throughout. But still waiting for an author to do for trees what [b:Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel|22320456|Beyond Words What Animals Think and Feel|Carl Safina|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1415428650s/22320456.jpg|41714030] does for animals.