Richard Powers is the author of twelve novels, including Orfeo (which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), The Echo Maker, The Time of Our Singing, Galatea 2.2 and Plowing the Dark. He is the recipient of a MacArthur grant and the National Book Award, and has been a Pulitzer Prize and four-time NBCC finalist. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.
A novel about the natural world - trees specifically - and our power as human beings to destroy it or redeem it. It reminds me that we are all connected and that there is still time to make things right -- TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage An extraordinary novel... It's an astonishing performance... The Overstory leaves you with a slightly adjusted frame of reference * Guardian * Should be mandatory reading the world over -- EMILIA CLARKE On almost every page of The Overstory you will find sentences that combine precision and vision. You will learn new facts about trees... [An] exhilarating read * The Times * One of the most thoughtful and involving novels I've read for years... Extraordinary * Daily Telegraph * Absolutely blown away by this epic, heartbreaking novel about us and trees -- EMMA DONOGHUE, author of Room and The Pull of the Stars [A] majestic redwood of a novel... Combines the multi-narrative approach of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas with a paean to the grandeur and wonder of trees... It is fitting that it ends with a message of hope * Observer * A rare specimen: a Great American Eco-Novel... It will change the way you look at trees * Financial Times * Autumn makes me think of leaves, which makes me think of trees, which makes me think of The Overstory, the best novel ever written about trees, and really, just one of the best novels, period. [The Overstory is] the best book I've read in ten years. It's a remarkable piece of literature, and the moment it speaks to is climate change. So, for me, it's a lodestone. It's a mind-opening fiction, and it connects us all in a very positive way to the things that we have to do if we want to regain our planet. We've got lots and lots of trees where we live in Scotland. If I'm feeling unwell or unsettled in any way, I always go and sit with a tree or walk through the trees, and that's incredibly healing and helpful -- Emma Thompson * New York Times *