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A Life on Our Planet
A Life on Our Planet
Oct 25, 2024 2:36 PM

Author:David Attenborough

A Life on Our Planet

With a new afterword, Why You Are Here: A speech on the opening of the COP26 climate summit

As a young man, I felt I was out there in the wild, experiencing the untouched natural world - but it was an illusion. The tragedy of our time has been happening all around us, barely noticeable from day to day - the loss of our planet's wild places, its biodiversity.

I have been witness to this decline. A Life on Our Planet contains my witness statement, and my vision for the future - the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake, and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right.

We have the opportunity to create the perfect home for ourselves and restore the wonderful world we inherited.

All we need is the will do so.

Reviews

A game-changer! People are hungry for a plan to reverse ocean death so we can keep breathing!

—— Margaret Atwood, Twitter

I doubt any more important book will be published this year. Charles Clover tells (with spirit and style) an alarming and convincing story, yet it is one that offers hope and a way forward for our beleaguered oceans ... and us.

—— Stephen Fry

[An] optimistic manifesto for change...There are so many stories here of nature's titanic powers - if only we give her a chance - that it's ultimately a genuinely optimistic and energising read

—— Sunday Times

This book is desperately needed. Interest in terrestrial rewilding is rocketing and now it is time for the sea. The material Charles Clover will be covering is rich, urgent and fascinating. There will be so many people who will be desperate to get behind this book.

—— Isabella Tree

This uplifting book proves rewilding can fill oceans with teeming life again...powerful...forceful...

—— Telegraph

What if our seas became productive again with giant sturgeon, halibut and skate? What if we let the seas soak up carbon from the atmosphere like the peat bogs instead of battering them with trawls and dredges? It's closer than you think. In fact, as Charles Clover explains, rewilding the sea has already begun.

—— George Monbiot

An important, intriguing and informative book' with 'admirable optimism

—— David Profumo, Spectator

Two deadly problems: the climate crisis and biodiversity collapse. One elegant solution: Rewild the ocean.

—— Sylvia Earle

The Oceans are in a bad state, mainly because of overfishing, but there is hope: the solutions are here.

—— Daniel Pauly

Marine conservation successes are at the heart of Charles Clover's latest book.

—— Financial Times

Save the ocean to help feed the world. From Lyme Bay to Ascension Island, Clover shows how it can be done.

—— Ted Danson

Abundant oceans are a huge gift we can present to the future. In this terrific book Charles Clover shows how it can be done with actual tales of rebuilding success.

—— Andrew Sharpless, CEO Oceana

Charles Clover brings a lifetime's commitment to and expertise in environmental causes to this impassioned plea to save our oceans from dereliction. He has been a pioneer in this field and his book should command the attention of everyone who cares about our planet's future.

—— Simon Heffer

What Charles Clover's inspirational book shows us is that if we replicate just the good decisions we have taken about the ocean we will bring back rare species, enhance the capacity of the ocean to capture carbon and have more fish to catch. In future, we have to protect more of the ocean, but protection will work for everyone.

—— Lewis Pugh

This book is desperately needed. Interest in terrestrial rewilding is rocketing and now it is time for the sea. The material Charles Clover will be covering is rich, urgent and fascinating. There will be so many people who will be desperate to get behind this book.

—— Isabella Tree

What if our seas became productive again with giant sturgeon, halibut and skate? What if we let the seas soak up carbon from the atmosphere like the peat bogs instead of battering them with trawls and dredges? It's closer than you think. In fact, as Charles Clover explains, rewilding the sea has already begun.

—— George Monbiot

Unless humanity takes the preservation of living oceans seriously, it will cease to exist, literally. Charles Clover's new book is a game-changer. People are hungry for a plan to reverse ocean destruction.

—— Margaret Atwood

I doubt any more important book will be published this year. Charles Clover tells (with spirit and style) an alarming and convincing story, yet it is one that offers hope and a way forward for our beleaguered oceans ... and us.

—— Stephen Fry

The Great American Novel has been written many times. From Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) to Don DeLillo’s Underworld (1997), American authors have produced works of sweeping grandeur that attempt to capture a people at a point in history. Yet these national epics have — you might conclude after reading The Overstory — failed to see the wood for the trees. … Richard Powers’ 12th novel is a rare specimen: a Great American Eco-NovelYet the literary greats that really inform Powers’ thinking and writing are the Transcendentalists Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, as well as the metaphysical poets … But the great literary tap root that grounds his sprawling novel is Ovid’s The Metamorphoses … The great fork that took us away from our natural environment and other living things, that led us to a place where we have unthinkingly destroyed forest after forest and species after species must be challenged, argues Powers, and challenged through stories. “The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind,” he writes. “The only thing that can do that is a good story.” This is a good story. It will change the way you look at trees.

—— Financial Times

Renews romanticism for the contemporary age; making space for the sentimental to breathe freely again, and challenging us not to be afraid to care … Powers’s mission is urgent: not only are we living through an age where science is rewriting what comprises consciousness, but we are simultaneously exploiting non-human life to an unprecedented extent … Powers’s place as one of the few established writers longlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize is well deserved. ... And if Powers himself was a tree, it would surely be a mature oak, for The Overstory displays the kind of abundant creativity that restores faith in human endeavour.

—— New Statesman

[A] rich literary canopy … Powers, one of a remarkable generation of polymathic American novelists including William T. Vollmann and the late David Foster Wallace, has produced a brilliant encyclopaedic [novel]A rich entanglement of discourses, disciplines, data, characters and styles, mirroring the most biodiverse ecosystem.

—— Times Literary Supplement

In his extraordinary 12th novel, Powers follows nine characters whose lives are bound up with the beauty, history, science, mythos and heedless destruction of trees … Passionately ecological in its themes, the novel doesn’t hammer at them. The green message becomes a natural element borne eloquently through the narrative.

—— Mail on Sunday

This eco-epic has affected me as no novel has for many years … The book brings to life the greatest problems of our time – climate change and biodiversity collapse – and gets under the skin in a way that just reading about the science doesn’t always manage … The structure of the book, meshing and connecting and interweaving, is explicitly and implicitly about ecology. But as rich and compelling as the human lives are, the trees are the stars. Powers conveys wonder about the natural world and an extraordinary depth of ecological insight: it’s this which makes the novel so powerfulThe Overstory has already been compared to Moby Dick. It is to trees what Herman Melville’s epic is to whales in that it changes our understanding of our relationship to a natural resource … The Overstory is a profound workThis is the first time I’ve read a novel that manages to celebrate and warn about the natural world in such a compelling and affecting way. It’s changed the way I look at trees, and I loved trees to begin with. We are being engulfed by an ecological crisis of our own making, which gives this book an urgency you should not resist.

—— New Scientist

A story about trees, nature and people, and the complicated relationships that hold the world together. Layered and intricate, it’s a wonderful epic … It’s a beautiful, brilliant and involving book, with a vital message at its heart.

—— Psychologies

Operatic … a novel devoted to “reviving that dead metaphor at the heart of the word bewilderment”.

—— Wall Street Journal

It can change the way you think about trees slightly, and it certainly did for me.

—— Jessie Burton, author of 'The Muse'

The Overstory is a visionary, accessible legend for the planet that owns us, its exaltation and its peril, a remarkable achievement by a great writer.

—— Thomas McGuane

This book is beyond special. Richard Powers manages to turn trees into vivid and engaging characters, something that indigenous people have done for eons but that modern literature has rarely if ever even attempted. It’s not just a completely absorbing, even overwhelming book; it’s a kind of breakthrough in the ways we think about and understand the world around us, at a moment when that is desperately needed.

—— Bill McKibben

A magnificent saga of lives aligned with the marvels of trees, the intricacy and bounty of forests, and their catastrophic destruction under the onslaught of humanity’s ever-increasing population … A virtuoso at parallel narratives ... gripping… Powers’ sylvan tour de force is alive with gorgeous descriptions; continually surprising, often heartbreaking characters; complex suspense; unflinching scrutiny of pain; celebration of creativity and connection; and informed and expressive awe over the planet’s life force and its countless and miraculous manifestations … [A] profound and symphonic novel.

—— Booklist (starred review)

Here is a big, brave, ambitious novel… The writing is breathtaking, the message is devastating. This book will fill you with wonder.

—— Saga Magazine

Formidably forks through time and place as it considers how best to care for our world.

—— i paper

An astonishingly rich book. Rich in ideas and imagination. Rich in drama, wisdom and truly illuminating facts about trees.

—— Caught by the River

There is a lot to learn from this novel.

—— The Skinny

Moby Dick for trees.

—— John Mullan

Alert to the large ideas and generous to the small ones; in an age of cramped autofictions and self-scrutinising miniatures, it blossoms.

—— Daily Telegraph

Brilliant at the futility of human action.

—— Sarah Crompton

A masterpiece of operatic proportions … What Powers means to explore is a sense of how we become who we are, individually and collectively, and our responsibility to the planet and to ourselves … A magnificent achievement: a novel that is, by turns, both optimistic and fatalistic, idealistic without being naïve.

—— Kirkus

His masterpiece.

—— Herald

You will careen through this book. The prose is driven. You don’t really get to draw breath … The writing is steel-edged, laser-sharp when Richard Powers wants it to be. When he sets out to nail meaning, it’s done. There are sentences you return to and wonder at.

—— Irish Times

This walk through the woods via words is a passionate paean to the natural world that prompts us to appreciate afresh our place on the planet.

—— i news

[I]t’s huge, it’s exciting, it’s wondrous … This really deserves to be read.

—— Bookmunch

The Overstory is a book you learn from.

—— Spectator

Dazzlingly written… Among the best novels I’ve read this decade… Despite its deep-time perspective, it could hardly be more of-the-moment

—— Robert Macfarlane , Guardian

A beautiful novel about humans reconnecting with nature in a fascinatingly, inventive world with colourful, rich characters, it will rekindle your love for nature

—— Asian Voice

An intriguing, powerful book

—— Maddy Prior , Daily Express

Absolutely blown away by this epic, heartbreaking novel about us and trees

—— Emma Donoghue

This extraordinary novel transformed my view of nature. Never again will I pass great tree without offering a quiet but heartfelt incantation of thanks, gratitude and wonder

—— Hannah Rothschild , Waitrose Weekend

A sweeping novel that skilfully intertwines many different stories of trees and people to create a paean to the hidden power and vital importance of the natural world

—— Country & Town House

Absorbing, thought-provoking and more than enough incentive to embrace your inner tree-hugger

—— Culture Whisper

The Overstory is filled with character and incident enough to engage anybody, but it's also filled with philosophy, science, poetry, and colour. It's a celebration of the world and humanity, but also tells of our coming doom. Perhaps above all it's a eulogy to trees. Eulogy is the right word because the novel celebrates the life, the beauty and wisdom of trees-but also their death. The novel also casts a cold-but loving-eye on humanity

—— Richard Smith , British Medical Journal

The Overstory has the mix of science and fiction that I so love; it widens my understanding and respect for the creatures who share this planet

—— KAREN JOY FOWLER

Stunning... It's been one of those rare books that has had a profound effect on me, and which has changed my perspective on life

—— Paul Ready , Yorkshire Post

Mind-boggling and visionary. The multi-stranded novel is a masterpiece in which science and poetry are deeply intertwined

—— Andrea Wulf, author of MAGNIFICENT REBELS , Guardian

A compelling read is that is near impossible to put down

—— Adoption Today

The Overstory is a prescient novel that urges us to take responsibility for our actions

—— Far Out

A masterpiece of storytelling at its very best. Powers weaves together science, poetry, nature and humanity so beautifully that it makes my heart ache and my mind fly

—— Andrea Wulf , Guardian

It is the imaginary world of a game, a world Zevin describes with the addict's ardour, which forms a universe even the sturdiest parent or antediluvian book-lover will be enticed into.

—— Big Issue

Friendship, love, loyalty, violence in America and the magic of invented worlds. Gorgeous

—— People

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a special book -- one that transports readers fully, as games do their players, into its immaculately crafted world

—— The Times

Woven throughout are meditations on originality, appropriation, the similarities between video games and other forms of art, the liberating possibilities of inhabiting a virtual world, and the ways in which platonic love can be deeper and more rewarding - especially in the context of a creative partnership - than romance.

—— New Yorker

Zevin probes at many of the themes that energize video games as a medium: their narrative depth, their therapeutic value, their casual violence, their toxic industry. And the possibility of living a better life in a virtual world

—— Wired

Zevin has the ability to make you care about her creations within paragraphs of meeting them... whose fates I consistently worried about when I occasionally had to put the book aside.

—— Financial Times

[An] engrossing, delightful novel... Zevin has the ability to make you care about her creations within paragraphs of meeting them... [Tomorrow] is rich with characters whose intertwined fates power the narrative

—— Financial Times

This book, with its respect for craft-the craft of love and games, or loving games-will remind you of how abundant one life is, how lucky we are to keep each other in our memories forever.

—— Kotaku

[I] raced through this pure wonder of a book in a few days

—— NINA MINGYA POWLES, author of Small Bodies of Water

A 2022 book that everyone should read

—— Pandora Sykes , Stylist LIVE

A must-read

—— Neil Druckmann

Anyone who reads Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow can't stop talking about it

—— Stylist

Utterly beautiful and endlessly hopeful, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a love letter to life, friendship, and creativity

—— The Skinny, *Books of 2022*

[The] 2022 book that everyone should read

—— Pandora Sykes , Stylist Live

My #1 book to recommend . . . incredible, like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon meets The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. It's about love and friendship and video games

—— Emma Straub

It feels right that the best video game novel out there is by a woman. Her story about the decades-long friendship and partnership between video game designers Sam and Sadie gets at so much about work, love and storytelling. It's a book that spawns great conversations.

—— Irenosen Okojie, author of Nudibranch

In following Sam and Sadie's journey from Massachusetts to California and into the imagined worlds of their games, Zevin writes the most precious kind of love story

—— Time Magazine, Best Novel of the Year

Zevin's writing is poetic, the plot is entertaining, moving and gripping and the nods to real life video games make it all feel incredibly real

—— Skinny, *Books of the Year*

Reading this is almost like an invitation from Zevin to enter a game...with every scene and moment so carefully constructed. Just brilliant

—— Skinny, *Books of the Year*

I loved it

—— Sarah Keyworth

A hugely enjoyable novel about lives and loves mediated by technology

—— Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2023*

This playful, accomplished novel is a poignant celebration of friendship, love - and gaming

—— Daily Mail

An engrossing coming-of-age story

—— Sunday Times, *Books of the Year*

Epic in scale, with unforgettable characters, it breaks you heart and puts it back together

—— Daily Express, *Books of the Year*
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