Sign In Join Now
User Accessibility
  • Increase Font

  • Invert Colours

Search for a Book Browse Books Menu
The Songs of Trees Cover Play Sample

Sample may contain unsuitable content.

Stream / Download

Audiobook streaming provided by:

OverDrive Logo

Share this book:

The Songs of Trees

AuthorDavid George Haskell

NarratorThe Author, Cassandra Campbell

Duration10h 26m

CategoriesAdult Non-Fiction, History, Science and Nature, General Non Fiction

PublisherPenguin Random House Audio Publishing

VersionUnabridged

  Save to Wish List
  Add to Favourites List

David Haskell's award-winning The Forest Unseen won acclaim for eloquent writing and deep engagement with the natural world. Now, Haskell brings his powers of observation to the biological networks that surround all species, including humans. Haskell repeatedly visits a dozen trees around the world, exploring the trees' connections with webs of fungi, bacterial communities, cooperative and destructive animals, and other plants. An Amazonian ceibo tree reveals the rich ecological turmoil of the tropical forest, along with threats from expanding oil fields. Thousands of miles away, the roots of a balsam fir in Canada survive in poor soil only with the help of fungal partners. These links are nearly two billion years old: the fir's roots cling to rocks containing fossils of the first networked cells. By unearthing charcoal left by Ice Age humans and petrified redwoods in the Rocky Mountains, Haskell shows how the Earth's climate has emerged from exchanges among trees, soil communities, and the atmosphere. Now humans have transformed these networks, powering our societies with wood, tending some forests, but destroying others. Haskell also attends to trees in places where humans seem to have subdued "nature" - a pear tree on a Manhattan sidewalk, an olive tree in Jerusalem, a Japanese bonsai- demonstrating that wildness permeates every location. Every living being is not only sustained by biological connections, but is made from these relationships. Haskell shows that this networked view of life enriches our understanding of biology, human nature, and ethics. When we listen to trees, nature's great connectors, we learn how to inhabit the relationships that give life its source, substance, and beauty.

0 (0 Reviews)
0
0
0
0
0

Related Titles

Save the Cat! Cover

Save the Cat!

Author: Blake Snyder

Save the Cat!

Author Blake Snyder

Narrator George Newbern

Duration 5h 25m

Here's what started the phenomenon: the bestseller, for over fifteen years, that's been used by screenwriters around the world! Blake Snyder tells all in this fast, funny, and candid look inside the movie business. Save the Cat is just one of many ironclad rules for making your ideas more marketable and your script more satisfying, others include t...

View Book
So You Want To Talk About Race Cover

So You Want To Talk About Race

Author: Ijeoma Oluo

So You Want To Talk About Race

Author Ijeoma Oluo

Narrator Bahni Turpin

Duration 7h 44m

A current, constructive, and actionable exploration of today's racial landscape, offering straightforward clarity that readers of all races need to contribute to the dismantling of the racial divide. In So You Want to Talk About Race, Editor-at-Large of the Establishment Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in...

View Book
Knitting For Beginners Cover

Knitting For Beginners

Author: Darla Singer

Knitting For Beginners

Author Darla Singer

Narrator The Yuw

Duration 7m

Do you enjoy knitting or would like to learn how? Learn how to create beautiful patterns in no time at all! Whether you are on the road, at home, or anywhere else you can knit in your spare time, anywhere you want. - Make patterns in just a few hours. - Learn how to knit. - Learn stitch patterns. - Create hats, sweaters, socks, gifts, items for you...

View Book
How To Be An Antiracist Cover

How To Be An Antiracist

Author: Ibram X. Kendi

How To Be An Antiracist

Author Ibram X. Kendi

Narrator Ibram X. Kendi

Duration 10h 44m

Not being racist is not enough. We have to be antiracist. In this rousing and deeply empathetic book, Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of the Antiracism Research and Policy Center, shows that when it comes to racism, neutrality is not an option: until we become part of the solution, we can only be part of the problem. Using his extraordinary gifts...

View Book
Self-reliant Gardening Cover

Self-reliant Gardening

Author: Janet Williams

Self-reliant Gardening

Author Janet Williams

Narrator The Authors

Duration 5h 1m

Whether you are looking for a backup disaster plan or you just want to live a more self-reliant lifestyle, homegrown food and remedies offer you the freedom of choice to take care of yourself. To start with, this comprehensive program will show you how you can have homegrown, garden-fresh fruits and vegetables anytime and anywhere you want. Think o...

View Book
Woodworking Cover

Woodworking

Author: John Hammer

Woodworking

Author John Hammer

Narrator Jim Johnston

Duration 1h 42m

Start Your Journey Towards Woodworking Today With This Handy Guide That Will Teach You The Techniques And Skills You Need As A Beginner To Master This Craft Woodworking Is A Hobby That People Have Been Enjoying For Years. While In The Past It Was Used More As A Way To Make Furniture And Other Things That You Needed In The Home, It Is Now Something...

View Book
The Lost Boys Cover

The Lost Boys

Author: Catherine Bailey

The Lost Boys

Author Catherine Bailey

Narrator Laura Kirman

Duration 15h 27m

Brought to you by Penguin. Berlin, September 1944. Ulrich von Hassell, former ambassador to Italy and a key member of the German Resistance, is executed for his part in an assassination plot against Hitler. In response to the attack, Himmler, leader of the SS, orders the arrest of all the families of the plotters. In a remote castle in Italy, von H...

View Book
This Is Your Brain On Music Cover

This Is Your Brain On Music

Author: Daniel Levitin

This Is Your Brain On Music

Author Daniel Levitin

Narrator Daniel Levitin

Duration 11h 46m

Brought to you by Penguin. Using musical examples from Bach to the Beatles, Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer such an emotional experience. Music is an obsession at the heart of human nature, even more fundamental to our spec...

View Book
How To Make Fabric Accessories Cover

How To Make Fabric Accessories

Author: Khyria Cepe

How To Make Fabric Accessories

Author Khyria Cepe

Narrator Courtney Lucien

Duration 47m

Wanting to have those beautiful earrings and charming necklaces that you see on magazines and online stores, but you don't have the budget? Read through this guide and find out how you can start making fabric accessories on your own.

View Book
The Gene Cover

The Gene

Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee

The Gene

Author Siddhartha Mukherjee

Narrator Dennis Boutsikaris

Duration 19h 31m

*Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2016* The Gene is the story of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in our history, from bestselling, prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee. Spanning the globe and several centuries, The Gene is the story of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans, th...

View Book