I have mixed feelings about this book. I am not a scientist, a dendrologist or an arborist: but just someone who has become interested in trees over the last couple of years as I explored our local woodlands during Lockdown. So this book's focus on individual trees and their place within their wider locality, whether it's as street furniture, in parkland or in woodland began by fascinating me. How trees grow well or less well in relation to other trees of the same or different varieties nearby: how they are affected by the removal, by whatever means, of trees nearby: their relationship with fungi, insects, other plants. All this is thought provoking, and the early chapters of the book excited my interest a great deal. However, in the end, Wohlleben's continual anthropomorphising of the trees started to concern and irritate me, especially as I felt I lacked the tools for constructive criticism. I'm grateful to this book for exciting my interest, and provoking in me a desire to know much more. But at the same time, I'm taking it with a very large pinch of salt. ( )

this is so interesting and illuminating. i will forget almost all of it immediately but that doesn't make it any less fascinating.

trees are so much more alive than i realized. they feel. they have memory. they sense time. they experience pain. they take care of their young and their community. they "see" and they communicate and they hurt and they cry and they live so more like we do than i realized.

(i feel totally stymied at how to interact with them now or if it's okay to plant that magnolia tree in my yard like i want to.) ( )

A fluid read packed with interesting research on trees translated to an exciting and accessible language.

However, at the same time the book often foregoes accuracy of scientific language in favour of personification of the trees, describing evolution as cause, extending metaphors of internet to micelial networks and more!

Basically the book may mislead thise who don’t understand how biological research works, and what it means to apply certain metaphors to physical systems. ( )

En los bosques suceden cosas sorprendentes: árboles que se comunican entre sí, árboles que aman y cuidan a sus hijos y a sus viejos y enfermos vecinos; árboles sensibles, con emociones, con recuerdos... ¡Increíble, pero cierto! Peter Wohlleben, guarda forestal y amante de la naturaleza, nos narra en este libro fascinantes historias sobre las insospechadas y extraordinarias habilidades de los árboles. Asimismo reúne por una parte los últimos descubrimientos científicos sobre el tema, y por otra sus propias experiencias vividas en los bosques; y con todo ello nos ofrece un emocionante punto de vista, una manera de conocer mejor a unos seres vivos con los que creemos estar familiarizados pero de los que desconocemos su capacidad de comunicación, su espiritualidad. Descubramos, gracias a este libro, un mundo totalmente nuevo...
Wohlleben habla de los árboles, de las amistades y las luchas entre ellos, de cómo se ayudan y de cómo y por qué enferman, de sus ritmos pausados, de sus necesidades y de sus longevas vidas.
Pero este no es un tratado de flora repleto de términos científicos. Al contrario, es un libro tan vivo como aquello de lo que habla. Wohlleben convierte a los árboles en seres cercanos y familiares, en amigos próximos. Habla desde su experiencia, desde la observación paciente y demorada a lo largo de los años, y lo hace con la misma naturalidad como si estuviera en efecto dando un paseo por el bosque a nuesto lado.

If you are lucky, a handful of times in your life you will encounter a book that changes the way you look at the world. The Hidden Life of Trees is just such a book (which is why I'm giving it five stars without a re-read). Wohlleben drew me in with a great combination of science and artistic description. I just want to give every book-reader I know a copy.
Now, it must be said: There's lots of solid science here, but Wohlleben employs language that most scientists and science writers would not feel comfortable using. He intentionally chooses to describe trees as volitional beings that make choices, instead of merely reacting to stimuli. He openly admits (although somewhat belatedly and not frequently enough, IMO) that this point of view and narrative choice are controversial. But at least he is open about this and is not letting people think that his is a widely shared opinion. Because of Wohlleben's honesty on this point, I can enjoy (and even entertain) his ideas in a way that I could not if he were less forthcoming. ( )