In Trees: An Exploration

Named a Best Book of the Year So Far by: The New Yorker - NPR - The Financial Times 

From the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller On Trails comes a wondrous new journey through the wilds of nature and the gnarls of history, exploring how trees--from the mightiest sequoia to the tiniest bonsai--can teach us to grow wise.

One day, on a whim, Robert Moor set out to climb a tree near his home--unwittingly embarking on what would become a decade-long adventure of intellectual and spiritual transformation.

Pursuing the hidden wisdom of trees, he digs through forgotten archives, scales to the top of a giant sequoia with Sir David Attenborough, trudges through swamps in Papua to reach a treehouse-dwelling tribe of hunter-gatherers, and travels to a remote research camp in Tanzania, where he spends one very uncomfortable night sleeping in a chimpanzee nest. Galvanized by a radical new outlook on both our gnarled past and our ever-branching future, he ultimately falls in with a ragtag clan of climate activists risking everything to halt construction of an oil pipeline and save an old-growth forest.

Along the way, Moor learns the art of "treethinking," which, he discovers, has the power to break open some of humanity's oldest questions: What is the secret to truly growing old? How do we set down roots in an increasingly chaotic world? Can we ever learn to pursue our future in the farsighted, deeply entangled manner of an ancient forest?

A witty, relentlessly curious excursion through philosophy, history, and science, what begins as an ode to the miracle of trees blossoms into a joyous, daring, and fiercely hopeful effort to "arborize humanity."

Hailed by The Wall Street Journal as a "philosopher on foot," Robert Moor is the bestselling author of On Trails and now In Trees. Translated into more than a dozen languages, On Trails garnered the National Outdoor Book Award, the Pacific Northwest Book Award, and the William Saroyan International Prize. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, New York magazine, Outside, Emergence and n+1, among other publications. He lives in Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia. 

Review Quotes:

"In Trees is dazzlingly erudite, playful, profound, adventurous and, above all, eloquently, fiercely alive. Full of brilliant, mind-bending insights and wonderful surprises, this is the most life-affirming book I've read in a long time."--John Vaillant, National Book Award finalist for Fire Weather

"A beautiful book... impossible to put down.... I've been recommending it to everyone I know."--David Wallace-Wells, on The New York Times' "The Opinions" podcast

"Gorgeous, honest, and soulful."--Bryan Stevenson, New York Times bestselling author of Just Mercy

"Earnest and passionate."--NPR

"In the course of his explorations, the author has been transformed. After reading this book, you may be, too."--Earth Island Journal