Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America

My wife and I feel fortunate to live where we do, where the woods are accessible with paths that make it easy on aging legs – a place and a time to escape.There are other books that carry this theme, like Thoreau’s Walden and Bill Bryson’s more recent, humorous Walk in the Woods, a story of his hiking the Appalachian Trail. Forest Walking belongs on the same shelf.Sydney M. WilliamsForest Walking, Peter WohllebenJune 10, 2023“Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods.” John Muir (1838-1914) John of the Woods: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir Edited by Linnie Marsh Wolfe, 1938Most people look at a tree as a source of shade, or something to tap in the spring if a Sugar Maple, a risk to power lines in winter, or a wonder of beauty if a White Oak, Copper Beech, or Giant Sequoia. Like Thoreau, Peter Wohlleben looks deeper. In the introduction, he writes: “When I talk of the forest, I’m talking about a community. In a forest left to its own devices, trees of different ages and different species grow in the places they choose and that suit them best.” The pleasure from reading Mr. Wohlleben’s book justifies the sacrifice some conifer had to make to provide the paper on which the book is printed.Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees (reviewed January 14, 2017), has been criticized for anthropomorphizing trees, which he delightfully does. In an interview, a few years ago, at the Yale School of Forestry, he said: “Trees have just as much character as humans do.” It is his passion for individual trees, his love for the forests he manages, and his joy in the woodlands he walks through, which suffuse his writing and causes readers to smile. To him, trees are generational: “In an intact ancient forest, huge trees shade the ground, using nearly all the sunlight that falls on their canopies to generate food to fuel their growth, while the younger trees wait patiently in the shadows below.”With Jane Billinghurst, editor, publisher, and translator of his earlier books, Peter Wohlleben embarked on a series of hikes through several national parks in Canada and the United States: Lake Livingston State Park in Texas, Florida’s Highlands Hammock State Park, Letchworth State Park in New York, South Carolina’s Sumter National Forest, Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, and others. We are told how we can identify trees by their bark, how dead trees (“snags’) are “apartment buildings for the forest’s maintenance crews,” and the advantages of winter hiking when the woods are quiet, the hikers few, and the mosquitoes and midges “peacefully slumbering.”Mr. Wohlleben is a lively, informative companion, as one walks through the forest. We are told that the largest fungus found so far is a honey fungus in Oregon’s Malheur National Forest, spread “over three and a half square miles,” that “trees get fatter at night,” and that on “a hot day, a mature tree sucks up to 130 gallons of water from the ground.” He writes of the symbioses of nature, of predator and prey. But he adds: “To keep the forest healthy, we need to look beyond partnerships to what biologists are now calling guilds – arrangements of give-and-take that involve different winners and losers depending on the day or season but together keep the whole system running smoothly.”This is a book of advice, with chapters titled: “Forest Activities with Children,” “Seasonal Walks,” “Comfort in the Forest,” and “Choosing Your Wardrobe.” It is a book that proves the adage: ‘learning can be fun.’ And that is why you will enjoy a stroll through the woods with Peter Wohlleben.

This is just a great book. It's not too big, so you can actually take it with you on a hike if you want. I found it best to read just one chapter at a time and then go out and find the trees or conditions that the author discusses. I learned A LOT about trees, both dead and alive and the little animals and spiders, bugs and birds, etc. that use them for food and shelter. Surprisingly downed trees have a lot to offer the forest and its creatures. This book, and the author's first book, are absolutely worth having.

If you like learning about the world around you, you’ll like this. As with this author’s book Hidden Life of Trees, it’s packed with fascinating trivia.

Reading this book is much like a fast stroll through a vast museum, where the guide gives you a brief tidbit about one specimen, only to rush onto another. After a time, your interest lags. Sometimes also the writing is pitched at a junior high level. The examples of fauna and flora can shift quickly from one region,to another, so there can be long stretches where no specimen may live within a thousand miles of the readers. Still, the book makes for interesting reading, though frustrating at times.

A book worth reading.I’ve spent a lot of time in nature and the author adds some perspectives worth incorporating into my woodland visits.

Love this book for way it weaves scientific information about forests/trees and person heartfelt observations and experiences

We hike in the forests of the western Rockies, so this book's promise on the back cover to help me learn to "decode nature's signs and dive deeply into the ecosystem around you" attracted me.For the most part, "Forest Walking" delivered on its promise. I learned that moss growing on the trunk of a tree "is likely almost as old as the tree on which it's growing," and disrupting it can harm or even kill the moss. Later in the book, however, in discussing overnight camping and having to do one's business in the woods, he says using moss is as good as toilet paper. I guess you should be careful which moss you choose. (And you should definitely not use toilet paper unless you've prepared to carry it out with you.)Despite devouring field guides for the various places we roam, this book added to my insight. However, it primarily serves as an introduction to people who might not be as observant during their woodland hikes as others. Chapters on entertaining children on these hikes and venturing into the forest at night were nice additions, even though these situations might not apply to some readers.I learned something new in nearly every chapter in this book, although I couldn't help wishing for more. On occasion the author would make a statement that I thought begged more explanation or example, only to be left wondering. There's only so much a book like this can do, but perhaps -- for me, anyway -- the net was cast a little wider but not as deep as I would have preferred.

Do yourself and a friend a favor and purchase this book!

A fascination insight into things we should all know about our Forest world.Easy to read with something interesting in every paragraph.

The content is interesting but book switches between descriptive content and then randomly a sentence here and there about "Jane". For example, a few pages explaining fungal relationships ended by “which Jane finds interesting”. It’s just odd switches in perspective that I found annoying.