The Overstory Audiobook By Richard Powers cover art

The Overstory

Preview
Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Overstory

By: Richard Powers
Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.79

Buy for $25.79

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2019

A monumental novel about reimagining our place in the living world, by one of our most "prodigiously talented" novelists (New York Times Book Review).

The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fable that range from antebellum New York to the late 20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

An air force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits 100 years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another.

These and five other strangers, each summoned in different ways by trees, are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest. There is a world alongside ours - vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

©2018 Richard Powers (P)2018 Recorded Books
Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Political Psychological Science Fiction Thought-Provoking Heartfelt Emotionally Gripping Suspenseful Literary Mystery
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_T1_webcro805_stickypopup

Featured Article: How to Celebrate Earth Day in Your New Normal


What a time for a golden anniversary. Celebrated annually since 1970, Earth Day commemorates its 50th year of existence as the world faces an unprecedented global crisis. While this particular Earth Day won't be filled with parades, communal beach cleanups, and school field trips to plant trees, fear not: when there's a will to honor the environment, there's a way. Inspire your inner environmentalist by listening to some of our favorite earth-loving audio.

Innovative Structure • Interconnected Narratives • Transformative Storytelling • Profound Themes • Skillful Pacing
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
This could have been a profound book if half of the book had been removed. The utter length made my listening a slough instead of a meaningful journey. Especially, during the first half, as soon as I was beginning to enjoy a particular character, boom—it was over & we were on to the next character. That grew tiring.

With some books, I am loathe to saying goodbye. With this book, I was relieved. And that’s too bad because the author did have some important things to say. But they got lost in the forest.

The ending gave little hope. I do not recommend this book. If it were revised & made more compact, that would be a different case.

Too long! I do not recommend.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Just too highfalutin for me. Beautiful prose...the kind of writing you enjoy sitting in comfortable chair with a hard cover book. I listen to audible whenever I'm not doing something that requires focus/attention, like driving, waiting in lines, gardening, etc. For me this was definitely not an audible book - too esoteric, much symbolism/allegory, etc., I really had to pay attention. It was kinda like listening to T.S. Eliot while cleaning the bathroom. Some day I'd like to pick it up in hardcover and indulge myself.

Brilliant writing.......glad it's over

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

There is an important and powerful 12-hour story in this book... Unfortunately there are another 11 hours of florid ramblings which really need to be pruned. This is a book which would benefit greatly from abridgment.

Abridge me!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The book has a bit of a slow start, but it's absolutely worth pushing through until it picks up.

Hopefully, it will make you consider the world around you a bit more and become a better inhabitant as a result.

Most thought provoking book I've covered in a whle

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Gratitude for the author who brought this tale into being. The perspective that I yearned for throughout this story was the Indigenous one, from the peoples in all the areas the trees have thrived. It was there in flashes, they were there as guides and powerful memories, but they are still there and here. It's the author's call of course, but the feeling all throughout this book is that the story is influenced by a collection of knowledge. If this story included the generational knowing of the people of these areas, that too would have added to the guiding light, providing tangible hope throughout the story. It would have changed it immensely, but it would bring critical balance to it. Still highly recommended.

EPIC vantage point

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Excellent reading. Amazing writing. Too long-- waters down impact. Insightful, poetic, important work. Highly recommend.

Excellent reading.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Start with top notch narration, add a clever and inspiring concept, and finish off with gorgeous writing and you’ve got my favorite book of the year. Thoroughly worth investing your time and concentration.

A phenomenon

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Slow at times but definitely worth it. Beautiful beautiful story. I ended up listening to it at 1.2 speed as I found the narration a bit difficult esp when the impediment was simulated.

Wonderful story….note about audio

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Really disappointing. Reading the book is a great experience, listening to the narrator ruins it. She has a pompous accent when narrating, and then uses painfully awkward and insulting accents for foreign and physically disabled characters. It's nearly unbearable.

stunning prose ruined by overdone voice acting

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

A must read for anyone with a passion for trees and preserving the environment.

compelling read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews