The Songs of Trees

The author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Forest Unseen visits with nature’s most magnificent networkers – trees.

David George Haskell’s The Forest Unseen won acclaim for eloquent writing and deep engagement with the natural world. Now he 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—in links that are nearly two billion years old.

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.

Through his exploration, 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.

‘David George Haskell is a wonderful writer and an equally keen observer of the natural world. The Songs of Trees is at once lyrical and informative, filled with beauty and also a sense of loss.’ —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction

‘Here is a book to nourish the spirit. The Songs of Trees is a powerful argument against the ways in which humankind has severed the very biological networks that give us our place in the world. Listen as David Haskell takes his stethoscope to the heart of nature – and discover the poetry and music contained within.’ —Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees

‘David George Haskell may be the finest literary nature writer working today. The Songs of Trees – compelling, lyrical, wise – is a case in point. Don't miss it.’ —Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT

‘This book makes you remember the fragile nature of humanity's relationship to the world around us. David Haskell has opened up a new dimension in sound – and given us a powerful tool to rethink the way we look at the roots of our reality and how trees are the best way to guide us. A tour de force of sound and symbol. Read. Listen. Learn.’ —Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky

‘This book breaks down barriers. At a time when we are constantly asked to choose sides, to dig in, to rally around ever smaller ideas, David Haskell examines the walls that would imprison us and, armed with science and patience, dissolves them. The book is nominally about trees, but it’s really about connections, the networks that link plants, animals, bacteria, humans, and the forces that have made such webs possible. Haskell’s trees are guideposts on a fascinating and refreshing road trip—the sort of listening tour we should require of all politicians. With a poet’s ear and a naturalist’s eye Haskell re-roots us in life’s grand creative struggle and encourages us to turn away from empty individuality. The Songs of Trees reminds us that we are not alone, and never have been.’ —Neil Shea, writer, National Geographic

‘David Haskell does the impossible in The Songs of Trees. He picks out a dozen trees around the world and inspects each one with the careful eye of a scientist. But from those observations, he produces a work of great poetry, showing how these trees are joined to the natural world around them, and to humanity as well.’ —Carl Zimmer, author of A Planet of Viruses

David Haskell is a professor of biology and environmental studies at the University of the South and a Guggenheim Fellow. The Forest Unseen (2012) won the 2013 Best Book Award from the National Academies, The National Outdoor Book Award and the Reed Environmental Writing Award. Along with his scholarly research, Haskell has also published essays, op-eds and poetry.