P&P Live! Suzanne Simard | FINDING THE MOTHER TREE with Victoria Wilson

In Finding The Mother Tree, Simard writes--in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways--how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, and remember the past; how they have agency about the future; elicit warnings and mount defenses, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies--and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them.

Simard writes of her own life, born and raised into a logging world in the rainforests of British Columbia, of her days as a child spent cataloging the trees from the forest and how she came to love and respect them--embarking on a journey of discovery, and struggle. And as she writes of her scientific quest, she writes of her own journey--of love and loss, of observation and change, of risk and reward, making us understand how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology, that it is about understanding who we are and our place in the world, and, in writing of her own life, we come to see the true connectedness of the Mother Tree that nurtures the forest in the profound ways that families and human societies do, and how these inseparable bonds enable all our survival.

Purchase Book Here

Suzanne Simard was born in the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia and was educated at the University of British Columbia and Oregon State University. She is Professor of Forest Ecology in the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Forestry.

Simard will be in conversation with Victoria Wilson, the Executive Editor, Vice President at Knopf. Among the many authors she has worked with: Walter Abish, Alice Adams, Diane Ravitch, Laurel Ulrich, Susan Cheever, Mary Beth Norton, Laurie Colwin, William Gass, Lorrie Moore, Anne Rice, Philippe Sands, Jill Ciment, Christopher Plummer, Helen Simpson, Lisa Alther, Meryle Secrest, Ruth Gruber, Jane Alexander, Richard Mason, Frederick Brown, and Annalena McAfee. She has served on the board of PEN American Center, as Vice President of the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, and was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Her book, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940, Volume One, was published by Simon & Schuster. She is at work on Volume Two of A Life of Barbara Stanwyck, 1940-1990.

-----------------------------------------------------Be Sure To Click SUBSCRIBE---------------------------------------------------------------

Visit us online at

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on instagram

Like us on Facebook

Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter:

Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.