Published in 2018, with translation from German by Jane Billinghurst, 165 pages, sponsored by the David Suzuki Institute of Canada and published by Greystone Books. The book was a gift from my wife Karen. Review done by Richard Zell Donovan, January 2024.

This engaging book is beautifully illustrated with photos from various “Shutterstock.com” and other referenced photo sources (list at the end of the book). It is an abridged prose version of the longer prose book of the same name. Wohlleben is a forester from Germany who visits various forests around the globe in tropical, temperate and boreal ecosystems. The book is easy to read, but don’t take that to mean simple. There are complex forest functions and processes explained through the book, many were new to me and interesting. It took me 3 sittings to read it; I didn’t want to rush and I did take some time to absorb the nice photographs. Philosophically Wohlleben sees humans as part of nature, and though there is a bit of “anthropomorphizing” forest dynamics to human behavior, all of it is done in a very thoughtful and instructive way. Fully half the pages are relatively large format pictures, which means that the actual prose is probably half the book page length at most. There are interesting anecdotes on the role of old growth or ancient forests, the differences between trees planted by humans versus natural forest, a few reflections (but not a lot) on humans and forests can better co-exist, and the relative presence of everything from birds to mammals, mites, weevils, fungi, and mushrooms.