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The Overstory - November 2025 Book Club Reading

Falselogic

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
The Overstory is a 2018 novel by Richard Powers. The book follows nine Americans whose experiences with trees bring them together to address the destruction of forests. It features a non-linear narrative structure and explores themes of environmental activism and humanity's relationship with the natural world. The book received widespread critical acclaim and won several major literary awards, including the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Richard Powers is an American whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction. He has also won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. As of 2024, Powers has published fourteen novels and has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford University.
 
I read this back in 2018 or 2019. It's an absolutely beautiful book and I'm so glad folks are going to read it here. I'm not entirely sure if I'm up for a re-read at the moment, but I will definitely be following the discussion either way.
 
This went on my nominations because it is another book that gets "what, you haven't read that yet?" as a reaction whenever I bring it up, and people have been telling me to read it for years and have nothing but glowing praise for it. It pops back into the "staff recommendations" at my local bookstore at least once a year. My mom even gifted me a copy a few years ago!
 
I read this last year and loved it, and I recommend that anyone who enjoys it check out the most recent Richard Powers novel, Playground. Those are the only two books by him I've read so far, but he strikes me as an author who really puts in the work to come up with something new and interesting every time.
 
zonetrope said:
I read this last year and loved it, and I recommend that anyone who enjoys it check out the most recent Richard Powers novel, Playground. Those are the only two books by him I've read so far, but he strikes me as an author who really puts in the work to come up with something new and interesting every time.
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Oh yeah, Playground was also great. His book in between those, Bewilderment, was also good, but I didn't feel like it reached the same heights. Though even a lesser Richard Powers novel is generally still a cut above a lot of other books!
 
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I bought it on kindle and then amazon immediately refunded me for it without me asking them to do that. Still in my library though? I’ll take it as a win.

Anyway the first little story is depressing.
 
This all started to sound familiar to me while I was reading it. And so I got suspicious and dug around in my book log. I read this book back in October of 2021!

I wish I had taken some notes on it...
 
This is haunting and beautiful. Still early on and want to get further before saying more, but so, so glad I'm finally reading this.
 
I'm about halfway through and it feels like this book could be closing in on a grand finale already, but obviously not!
 
I’m about a third through and they are slowly starting to tie some of the dangling plots together, which is always my jam. Good choice!
 
I'm about 80-90% done and have been really enjoying this book, but I keep thinking that it could have been even better with maybe one or two characters less. Everybody does seem essential, though.
 
Final notes: It was a good book, and while the narrative focus on trees in every character's story might have felt forced, it didn't. I stand by my previous judgement that the book had maybe too many characters, and if I had to drop one, it would be Neelay. Maybe the book would have ended better with Patricia's last speech?.

Edited to add, because turns out I had more thoughts still: I found the depictions of activism very inspiring, maybe especially given the perspective of the book. The groundwork done by the text makes really obvious how human-made legislation and abstract concepts like property rights don't always make any sense. Context is key, and sometimes the context is thousands of years.
 
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Due to a family emergency last week (thankfully things are fine now) I didn't get much time to read over the long Thanksgiving weekend. But hey, we don't do December clubs so I can keep reading through that. I'm still really enjoying it and actively wanted to be reading it multiple times when I couldn't.
 
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