Longtime readers of this blog (haha, just kidding, there are none) may be tiring of the ongoing saga of the Boneshaker Science Book Club, but I regret to inform you that there have been a couple more twists! And turns! So, I was all set to pull the plug on the club last month, but then three people other than me showed up for the discussion of Reason for Hope, by Jane Goodall, and it was really nice to talk through the book, and I felt like everyone got something out of it. A biology teacher from Brooklyn Park named Lindsey had just randomly found the event on Facebook, had coincidentally been listening to the audiobook, and seemed to really enjoy the discussion. She suggested The Hidden Life of Trees for a subsequent club, and since I didn't have any better ideas, I totally went for it. There wasn't a paperback option available, but it was available on both audiobook and from the library, so there were lower-cost options. I ordered four copies, since we hadn't sold more than two or three of the book club selection for months, and they immediately sold out. I ordered four more copies, and they sold out again. Meanwhile, the Hennepin County Public Library went from having several copies available for loan to having 30 people on the waiting list, almost overnight. And there are several people who said they'd go to the event on Facebook, plus like 90 people interested. I'm really curious to see how many people show up on Saturday. It'll probably be just me and Nick like in November, but I could be pleasantly surprised.
Anyhow, this is a very interesting book. If I would describe my favorite kind of pop-science book, it would be: full of fun facts. And The Hidden Life of Trees has many fun facts! I had no idea that growing up in an old-growth forest had such an effect on the life of the trees contained within. I guess that it's nothing for beech trees (which I don't even know for sure if I would recognize) to live for 400-500 years, growing very slowly and because of that, being more resistant to pests, weather, etc. If I could summarize the theme of the book, it would be that trees need a community in order to reach their full potential, and I'm not sure if there are very many habitats that exist any more in which that can happen. Which is unfortunate, but there's not really any way to un-ring that bell. The old growth forests are few and far between, and you can't really re-create that habitat. Still, there's a lot of things to be learned from that idealized arrangement.
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