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Title: The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring
ISBN: 074356121X
Author:
Publicate Date: 2007-04-10
Publish: 2007-04-10
List Price: $29.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Audio CD
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $2.04
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.97
Amazon Merchant Price: $29.95
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Wonderful Book!!
Richard Preston has a way of making a scientific story come to life by bringing you into the lives of those who lived it. By far my favorite of all his I've read. This is now on my list of favorite books of all time. If you love trees, you'll be crazy about this book.
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2: What a disappointment!
I was expecting too much from this book and I was VERY disappointed. What I got was a mediocre, disjointed story of the activities and love lives of tree-climbing geeks looking for little more than the adventure of the climb and the search for the world's tallest tree.
I was expecting a book that better described what was found in their climbs. Where was the emotion? What did it look like? Where are the pictures for those of us who will never climb a redwood? Where was any sense of the majesty and awe and timelessness that one feels in presence of these ancient giants? It is unlikely that anyone who had never experienced the redwood forest would appreciate any of that majesty from this book. Are the redwoods there just to be climbed? Is that their only value? It would be easy to think so after reading this book.
The few hand drawings and the brief, inept descriptions gave me NO feeling for what was really there in the forest. And I've been there many times. What about the folks who have never seen the unbelievable magnificence of the redwood forest? What could they sense from this book of the awe one feels by just being in the presence of these timeless giants? Could there have been a few real pictures? Where are the impassioned environmental reasons for saving the forest? This book tells more of ropes and carbiners than it does of any of this.
These guys were aledged scientists, yet this book tells very little of what they found of any scientific value. Where was their scientific curiosity? What are their passions beyond just climbing the trees?
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3: A Disappointing Muddle
The Wild Trees has several different elements - some work but most don't. I generally enjoyed the parts that focused on the trees and the related ecosystems. However, I would have preferred he focus more on facts and the science and less on trying to inspire awe. I understand the trees are tall, wide and old, but his endless references to number of board feet, who was alive when the tree was young, or looking at a solid wall of tree quickly became tiresome. Most of the book focused on several characters who Preston clearly admires but I generally found them to be irresponsible, self-absorbed and annoying. Several of the characters are botany professors or scientists, but it was very unclear from the book whether they were doing worthwhile research or just wasting time climbing trees and occasionally measuring them. The book is non-fiction and the people are who they are; but its not particularly enjoyable reading page after page about the day-to-day lives of people you don't like. Final, a significant portion of the end of the book focused on Preston's experience with tree climbing, a family trip to climb some trees in Scotland and his involvement with some of the book's main characters in an expedition to Australia. This part of the book did not seem to fit with the rest of the book; it seemed as if he just wanted to include some enjoyable experiences he had even though they had little relation to the main story.
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4: A very dull book on a fascinating subject.
As a Certified Arborist, I was very eager to read this book. I spend most of my working hours aloft, in trees, so this book was right up my alley (tree). Unfortunately, the author's lack of interesting character development and a rambling narrative style made me not like this book, at all. It was tough to make it through. Indeed, what little character development there was made me dislike most of the climbers in this book. I was especially annoyed with the individuals who illegally climbed the big trees as younger men and then, once they had made some measurements and published a few scientific papers on that subject, soon became reactionary elitists who kept the trees to themselves and their colleagues via secret maps and such. What a bunch of garbage. Yes, only they (conveniently) deemed themselves worthy of climbing the tall trees. Also, as a skilled rope climber these past many years, I found myself laughing out loud at the terms this author used to describe well known climbing techniques. Double crotching became "sky walking," lanyard ropes/second lines became "spider lines" and other such silliness. In all fairness, since the author is a recreational climber it is fairly obvious that he is using the terms that he learned from his climbing instructors. Those instructors saw a way to cash in on the public's interest in tree climbing and so they took the techniques from the pros and gave them their own more romantic/picturesque names. Another annoying thing is that the true pioneers in our business are missing, entirely, from this book. A reader of this book, new to tree climbing, would think that climbing began in the 1980's with the rec climbing movement. In reality, professional arborists and big timber workers have been roping their way up trees before that. It would have been nice to see some of the true climbing pioneers like Beranek and his contemporaries mentioned in this book. All in all this book was a disappointing, boring read.
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5: Editing is Lacking an otherwise impressive story idea
Loved the content but found the style of writing to be better suited to essays. This booked seems like it was rushed to print before Preston had come up with a suitable way to tell this story. When it gets to the part where he is involved directly with the characters it is more coherent but the chapters that tell the story of each character is better as a stand alone essay. It just seems like a book that is half baked....not crazy...just not ready. Where was the editor?
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