The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring (2007)

Fascinating topic--especially when it's about the trees--but Preston's writing is annoying, and this needed a ruthless editor. Do we really need all those rather tedious bios of the *parents* of the tree-explorers and how they tragically sit on the porch, smiling through their illness at their delightful children as they scamper up trees? The guys' girlfriends, the mullet and the baggy pants of Michael Taylor or how fat he's getting? The way Preston writes about it, i don't really give a s**t.
Also, apart from the clichéed romanticizing of the geeks and their relationships (the, presumably fictionalized, conversations between them sound like a cheap novel rather than reporting) Preston has an irritating habit of defining something and then repeating it in sentence, which is annoyingly jerky as well as patronizing. E.g. "when a climber falls on a belay rope, it's called a 'whipper'. Steve took a huge whipper from the top of a tree." This sounds like a grade-school reading primer! A better writer (and editor) would say something like "Steve had taken a huge whipper of a fall from the top of a tree before the belay rope caught him."
The memorable article in the New Yorker which was an excerpt of this book was tighter and MUCH better. This book makes one long for John McPhee's elegant and erudite prose.
PS I listened to the audio version of this book, and the wooden, unrhythmic reader certainly did it no favors, though I think he must have been somewhat hampered by Preston's prose. I eventually had to switch to the book, which, being more skimmable, was bearable. ( )

Preston was very involved and present throughout this book, so much so I'm not sure if I would classify it as nature memoir rather than narrative nonfiction. His presence added information about the feeling of climbing a giant tree, so I'm not condemning it. The focus of this book was rather more on the interesting people who become obsessed with redwoods and slightly less on the trees themselves. [a:Donald Culross Peattie|651969|Donald Culross Peattie|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-M-50x66.jpg] has probably ruined me for anyone else. Preston's an involving writer, though, and his scenes of derring-do are pulse-pounding and breathtaking. I loved best the descriptions of the little groves, little ecosystems at the tops of the redwoods' canopies. Recommended for tree-huggers everywhere. 3.5 ( )

I find it hard to describe this book without making it sound dull and boring. I've tried to tell my husband and he just looks at me blankly.

"It's about trees?"

"Well, yes, but it's interesting and it's about...trees."

Sometime in the late '80's, a few people who didn't even know each other decided to start exploring the remaining stands of redwoods. Michael Taylor believed that the biggest redwood had yet to be found, despite a National Geographic statement to the contrary made decades earlier. Steve Sillett became the first biologist to really explore and attempt to describe the redwood canopy. They each had friends who helped them and they eventually met each other and joined forces as they attempted to understand these ancient living things.

I was fascinated from the beginning. I do have that old biology degree that I mention every single time I read something even remotely scientific, but I am more interested in mammals than plants. I was so interested in the lives of these guys who were/are climbing 30 stories on some ropes in a freaking tree. I panic if I get above the second or third rung on a ladder. The descriptions of the canopy, their progress and trial and error as they tried to figure out how to do what no one really had done before, their personal setbacks and triumphs, I liked it all.

The author starts climbing with them and adding his own perspective maybe two-thirds of the way through the book. I was a little turned off by this at first. I don't know if the part of me that had "Don't ever use I in an essay" drilled into her head was horrified that a published author was breaking that cardinal rule or if I had a little bit of an attitude of "Seriously? You're talking about climbing an oak tree while these guy are climbing redwoods?" but I did get over it pretty quickly. The descriptions of what he saw firsthand were of course better than what he'd only been told about. I even got really interested when he goes on vacation in Scotland to climb in the few remaining ancient Highland forests.

I really kept meaning to look up some of the climbing techniques that these guys use just to see what they involve. They sound beautiful and graceful and scary as hell! I never got around to it while I was reading but I definitely will before posting this review on my blog.

My copy had a few illustrations, but I really wish there had been photos. Preston tried to be secretive about where the oldest, biggest trees are located in order to protect them from weekend climbers who might damage them, so maybe he was afraid that pictures would give away something about the location. Or maybe it was a cost decision. Either way, I would have like to have seen pictures. I plan to look for photos of some of the named trees as soon as I finish this review.

If you're at all interested in the natural world or even explorers' lives, this might be a good choice for you. I'm doing a terrible job with this review but it was a surprisingly informative yet entertaining book. ( )

In "The Wild Trees," Richard Preston transports the reader into the realm of the giant Redwood trees of Northern California. Some of these giants reach more than 300 feet into the sky. Up in the canopy among these massive, living behemoths there are entire ecosystems and unique species that flourish right there atop these majestic living monuments.

Preston accounts both his initial curiosity and how his quest was launched, as well as his adventures up to the top of these great trees in vivid detail. Not only does he paint wonderful word pictures, he educates and advocates for these increasingly rare living giants. There is adventure, science, environmental advocacy, powerful story-telling, and even intrigue all right within the pages of this excellent book. Highly recommended! ( )

Another great book by Richard Preston. It tells the story of the first people to climb into the canopies of the redwoods. Amazingly no one had tried it prior to the mid-1980s, and only then by amateur rock climbers on a lark. They discovered a rich and vibrant ecosystem and created a whole new field of study. The book intimately retells their careers and lives and discoveries. ( )