PBS-Newshour

Our November pick for the PBS NewsHour-New York Times book club, “Now Read This,” is Richard Powers’ novel “The Overstory.” Become a member of the book club by joining our Facebook group, or by signing up to our newsletter. Learn more about the book club here.


In 1854, The San Francisco Daily Chronicle expressed concern about how many trees in the region were being cut down — many of them mammoth redwoods.

“Soon the whole neighborhood will be cleared of growing timber,” the paper wrote. “Already the fairest and largest trees have fallen before fire, axe, and saw.”

Fast forward more than a century and a half. Author Richard Powers, who had previously written novels about music and computer science, was so moved after a walk in the redwoods that he came home and read about why much of the old-growth forests had been cut down, and why any were left.

He soon began writing “The Overstory,” our November book club pick. It’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about trees, activism, and humans’ disconnect today with the natural world.

Below, Powers shares how nature has changed how he writes and lives, the importance of being present and paying attention, and what the book “Harold and the Purple Crayon” means to him.

Currently: ~1-3% of Old-growth trees: still. exist. Oh and, a related? factoid heard: ~1/3 of Teens are enroute --> Diabetes (not caused by Drumpf, though his own treats-for-athletes: exemplifies the matter to a Fare-Thee-'Well', a use of the word which doesn't mean: "Well" in the slightest.

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Just a small reminder of (what I try to remind self ..amidst non-stop manufactured -distractions) aka
We look, often we do not fully-See.. as in:
moi passing-by, enroute to Oregon .. a rare strand of Redwoods. Which forced me to stop, walk and yes, fucking-See /touch them {sigh}

40 seconds later, they might not have existed ever, at all--if you asked the monkey-brain--5 min. later.
Carrion
Member-of-defective-species: that's a 40