How long is it?
512 pages in the W. W. Norton & Company 2019 paperback edition.
Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Nature & Environment
The Overstory
Highly regardedPulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2019Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 67 / 100High
- Length
- 512 pagesW. W. Norton & Company · 2019
- Reading time
- 10 h 15 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Measured
- Emotional intensity
- 4 / 5
About 10 h 15 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 21 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Trees connect nine Americans whose lives otherwise seem far apart: an artist inherits generations of photographs of a chestnut, a scientist investigates communication among trees, and a programmer builds virtual worlds inspired by living systems. Artist Nicholas Hoel and college student Olivia Vandergriff become forest activists in the Pacific Northwest, where logging threatens the remaining old growth. Their efforts belong to a wider story of families, work and humanity’s relationship with the living world.
Reader notes
Separate life stories gradually converge in a many-voiced literary novel, rich in forest ecology and lyrical descriptions of trees. The narrative frequently pauses for scientific ideas and environmental arguments, so its momentum is uneven. Suicide, abuse and violence enter its portrayal of human suffering alongside ecological destruction.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Dense · Descriptive · Essayistic · Lyrical
- Tone
- Atmospheric · Cerebral · Philosophical · Reflective
- Structure
- Braided · Multiple timelines · Nonlinear
- Driven by
- Character · Ideas · Worldbuilding
- Point of view
- Multiple viewpoints · Third person, omniscient
- Setting
- United States
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 4 / 5
- Ideas
- 4 / 5
- Structure
- 4 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 2 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Community
- Legacy
- Morality
- Nature and environment
- Power
- Technology and society
Content notes
- Violence
- Strong
- Sexual content
- Mild
- Swearing
- Strong
- Substance use
- Mild
- Abuse
- Strong
- Self-harm or suicide
- Strong
Standing and awards
Highly regarded
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2019
- PEN/Faulkner Award shortlist, 2019
- Booker Prize shortlist, 2018
- Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction longlist, 2019
- Pulitzer Prize — Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2019
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
W. W. Norton & Company · 2019 · paperback. ISBN 9780393356687.
How long does it take to read The Overstory?
About 10 hours 15 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 512-page W. W. Norton & Company edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Richard Powers
Richard Powers is an American novelist whose fiction examines how modern science and technology alter ordinary experience. Across a body of work marked by dense, essayistic, often lyrical prose, he moves between technical ideas and their pressure on relationships, identity, and ecological responsibility. His subjects have ranged from genetics and artificial intelligence to neuroscience, astrobiology, and forest ecology. Powers characteristically builds novels around researchers, programmers, artists, and other people trying to understand systems larger than themselves, treating specialized knowledge as part of the drama rather than as background. Galatea 2.2 turns an experiment in machine reading into a self-reflexive inquiry about literature and consciousness, while The Echo Maker uses a neurological disorder to unsettle ideas of recognition and selfhood. In The Overstory and Bewilderment, scientific ways of seeing deepen stories of grief, care, and environmental loss. What distinguishes Powers’s work is its sustained effort to hold intellectual scale and intimate feeling within the same narrative frame.
If you liked this
Edition and details
- Publisher
- W. W. Norton & Company
- Publication year
- 2019
- Format
- paperback
- Pages
- 512
- ISBN
- 9780393356687
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 2018
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Nature & Environment · Literary fiction · Contemporary literary
- Editions
- 16
- Languages
- 2 (English, Unspecified)