Frustrating! Wohlleben introduces us to arboreal world with fascinating insights that were unknown to me: trees communicating via fungi, travelling electrical signals, bark adaptations, intra-forest competition.
Yet despite all these this book is a polemic. There’s no need to end the penultimate paragraph of a chapter with ‘…and it probably doesn’t mean anything. [citation] And yet?’
Wohlleben rends my heart with such political writing that discredits his scientific basis. It’s like he can’t decide whether to persuade or inform. There are more minor violations like referring to ‘pain’ with no qualification or even an attempt at a definition.
As much as I love trees and loved learning more about them in this book, I couldn’t possibly recommend this to anyone.