The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries From a Secret World Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Peter Wohlleben (Author), Mike Grady (Narrator), Bolinda Publishing (Publisher)

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in Ecosystems & Habitats

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A forester's fascinating stories backed by the latest scientific research illustrate how trees nurture and talk to each other. Are trees social beings?

In this international best seller - which has sold more than 320,000 copies in Germany alone - forester and author Peter Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow, share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers.

Wohlleben also shares his deep love of woods and forests, explaining the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in his woodland. After you have heard The Hidden Life of Trees, a walk in the woods will never be the same again.

Listening Length

7 hours and 34 minutes
Author

Peter Wohlleben
Narrator

Mike Grady
Audible release date

13 September 2016
Language

English
Publisher

Bolinda Publishing
ASIN

B01LVZ6GRI
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	7 hours and 34 minutes
Author	Peter Wohlleben
Narrator	Mike Grady
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com.au Release Date	13 September 2016
Publisher	Bolinda Publishing
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B01LVZ6GRI
Best Sellers Rank	399 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 1 in Nature Writing & Essays 1 in Forests & Forestry (Books) 1 in Ecosystems & Habitats (Audible Books & Originals)

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4 star		14%
3 star		5%
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1 star		1%

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Top reviews from Australia

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Susanna Lynley

An Important Book

Reviewed in Australia on 1 October 2018

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This is a very interesting book. It's not an easy read. I suspect that it suffers a little in translation. But for anyone interested in the environment, particularly trees and they way they learn, adapt and communicate with each other, it's not to be missed. Trees have been used as sources of food, shelter and tool making since the advent of life. They have been revered and sometimes feared. Above is an Aboriginal birthing tree: a hollow in which a woman could give birth with a modicum of privacy and shelter.

6 people found this helpful

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Kate CHAPLIN

Trees gossiping ...

Reviewed in Australia on 14 November 2018

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Immensely readable. I was fascinated both by the author's own anecdotes and his generalised observations. Who would have guessed just what's going on beneath our feet as we stroll through a forest (or, in Australia, native bushland)? I'd heard about the immense fungi networks previously, but this insight into trees was new to me. Now, when I see a glorious old eucalypt standing alone in an immense paddock, I will grieve for it ... read this book to discover why!

4 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

My comments on The Hidden Life Of Trees

Reviewed in Australia on 24 November 2018

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Thank you this book was totally fascinating and gave me such a lot of new information that I now look at the trees around me and feel some concern for them as they are no .longer in a forest and most of them do not even belong to this country. What a mess we have made (and continue to do so) of a beautiful world. I truly believe that today children should be taught about conservation and the fact that everything we see is alive and contributes to everything around. All too often as man tries to improve on Nature we see disaster. Helen Bowyer

4 people found this helpful

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Adi

Amazing insight into trees and thier enviroment - accessible and fresh

Reviewed in Australia on 8 February 2020

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I am enjoying this book. The author cleverly unlocks the recent science about trees and forests and their symbiotic and multi-decadal interaction. This combines observation, science environmental studies and a broad experience and learning through practice. It is made accessible by a broadly woven analogy to our human existence (and sometimes requires a bit of a leap into some "sciencey" stuff (but not too much for most readers - the reason for 4 rather than 5 stars). But this is not a reason to avoid this book - it has changed my mind about forests and how I view their enduring value.

One person found this helpful

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Truth Devour

Insightful

Reviewed in Australia on 26 July 2019

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Oh how I loved reading this book along with its refreshing insight into the interconnection of trees within forests. This book has invoked a hunger for me to learn more about the life of 🌲 these magnificent living elements.

This should be part of the biology curriculum.

Amazing

One person found this helpful

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EileenH

Really, how can trees have hidden lives?

Reviewed in Australia on 14 December 2021

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This book is a fantastic read. Written in a very easy, matter of fact style and packed full of amazing observations and scientific facts. It has given me a new, stronger understanding and respect for these sentient beings and a desire to help them which in turn will help us and this little rock of ours, 3 down from the sun.

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Jenni Sorensen

A true delight and eye opener

Reviewed in Australia on 3 November 2016

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Five stars because this book taught me so much in such an easy to read format. If you love trees you will love this book and if you have no feelings either way, you may grow to understand and then love them. Every politician, planner, developer, forestry worker and child should read this book. For everyone else it is recommended, if not compulsory!

4 people found this helpful

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troger

A great book to learn how the Olders are living

Reviewed in Australia on 30 July 2021

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I love this book it teach you the unknown, I am a complete beginner and don't know about trees in general, need to be taken in consideration, I think this book is fantastic for complete beginner, and anyone who is interested to know whats is really important in life: Nature and how it works.

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Richard Abbott

Very interesting material but could have been polished a bit more

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 March 2019

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I had been meaning to read The Hidden Life of Trees for some time now, and finally made the opportunity. Broadly speaking, it did not disappoint, except in two specific areas that I'll talk about later.

Peter Wohlleben has worked with trees for years, mostly in Germany, and is convinced that they exhibit behaviours far more complex than we usually reckon, behaviours that we normally associate with higher animals and birds than with plants. He describes how they communicate, both chemically through scent and electrically via their root systems and fungal symbiotes. They can also support each other in times of hardship and old age, count daylight hours, perceive environmental changes and opportunities, and remember important facts in order to shape future actions. It all makes for fascinating reading, and the material is well worth exploring.

What also came home to me was how little we know about the life of trees, largely because the timescale they live on is so slow compared to ours. But another factor which Peter highlights many times is that many of us never meet a tree in its natural state - as one part in a naturally regulated and extensive forest. Isolated trees, or those in small stands, or those living in managed woodland, are all constrained to live unnatural lives, so their growth and actions are as distorted from natural as ours would be if we were kept away from human company as we grew up. It's a rather sobering thought, that our typical treatment of trees might easily be considered cruelty.

Peter also highlights areas where our grasp of ordinary tree biology is very weak. It is common knowledge that trees draw water and nutrients out of the soil using their roots, and deliver it to their leaves and growing shoots - for some trees this is a journey of tens, or even a couple of hundred feet. It comes as a surprise to read that we don't actually know how they do this, and that the normal explanations of osmosis, capillary action, or transpiration cannot possibly account for the heights reached.

One of the most vivid parts was Peter's attempt to get to linguistic grips with the slowness of the life cycles of trees. He describes very effectively the grand migrations of forests south and north as the ice ages have come and gone, and the stages by which newly available soil is occupied first by the little plants, then by comparatively fast outlier trees, and finally by the true forests. On this timescale, some kinds of trees help one another and grow together, while others hinder and displace each other. It would make a good game, perhaps, as well as a good read, in which environmental and other external changes drive constant accommodation and negotiation.

I mentioned two things that put me off the book. The first is the writing style, which for the first half is quite pedestrian. I fully appreciate that Peter may not be writing in his native language, and the wealth of ideas kept me persevering when the writing was dull - perhaps it would have been good to have employed a co-writer to help. The second was that I would have really liked some speculation about causes, in the many areas where we don't know for sure. Peter seems committed to writing only what he is confident can be tied to evidence - which is a worthy goal in itself - but given his great experience in the field, I would have liked it more if he had included his guesses, intuitions, and suppositions.

All things considered, though, The Hidden Life of Trees is a fascinating book to delve into, perhaps as a starting point for other reading.

123 people found this helpful

Tomba

Highly recommended - fascinating and explore a new ancient world

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 September 2016

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Many of us have an inner feeling and connection with the world of trees and the environment. This fascinating insight in to the underground world of trees comes alive through the author's knowledge and great understanding brought about by his enthusiasm for the subject that becomes absorbing. I started with the summary version and was left disappointed as it lacked the narrative and was more factual with no depth but this book leads you along the path of an explorer that opens up a whole new hidden world of which we have little knowledge. I highly recommend this book if you care for the environment and are a nature lover as this will change your outlook and you will never look at a tree and plants in the same way as you did before. There is so much we don't know about trees and this book opens a door to explore a new world that has been going on for centuries upon centuries and continues although with more and more difficulty as man defaces the landscape, this affect changes the pattern of nature and wildlife. It's a must read!

202 people found this helpful

mysie

I live a very simple life and this book talks to me like no other

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 March 2017

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Everyone should make time to read this book. It satisfies the soul. I live a very simple life and this book talks to me like no other. It sounds namby pamby but honestly, read it and understand the place trees have in this universe. I have loaned this book to a much younger relative, who typically has read crime novels and the like. She contacted me after reading and said " thank you for telling me to read this book. I think you just changed my life"!

159 people found this helpful

maconskye

Saccharine

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 January 2018

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Mawkish, sentimental, not one piece of scientific evidence given, anthropomorphic attributes endlessly applied, I don't know if it's the translation or just a shallow superficial writing style that makes this an uncomfortable read

71 people found this helpful

Victor Vorski

Absolutely wonderful book, in a highly readable way tells the story of species collaboration in a forest.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 February 2018

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An absolutely wonderful book, in an accessible, readable way tells the story of the collaboration in a multi-species forest ecosystem. I deeply loved this book, and the writing style is eminently readable and emanates a contagious empathy for the forest ecosystem whilst tracing the author's personal story of going from "traditional forestry" with forest as a factory producing wood pulp to a holistic understanding of the forest as a living ecosystem a meta-organism.

One of those books which in a subtle way alters your perception of reality and deepens your understanding of nature and thus of humanity itself.

Profound without any attempt to be so.

I wish I had read this when I was younger.

55 people found this helpful

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The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries From a Secret World Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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