8.4 /10 1 Votes
5/5 The Telegraph Language English Preceded by Shakespear's Wife | 3.4/5 Goodreads Country United Kingdom ISBN 978 1 4088 4673 5 Originally published 1 November 2013 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (hardback and paperback) Similar Germaine Greer books, Other books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
White Beech: The Rainforest Years is a book describing efforts of regeneration of rain forest written by Germaine Greer. It was first published in 2013 by Bloomsbury and reprinted several times.
Contents
Experiment
Germine Greer was a successful writer by 2001 when she decided to invest all her earnings to purchase 60 hectares of over used land for a price of 268,000 pounds in the midst of rain forest in Queensland, Australia. It was a part of Gondwana forest which was logged during 19th century and converted as a banana farm during 20th century. She left the place to itself so that the rain forest would regenerate and by 2013 her experiment is successful where a part of the overused land regenerated as rain forest.
Reception
The book is described as a quasi-religious epic out of a part of her remarkable life when she decided to restore a small, wrecked rainforest in Australia, her homeland. The tone is apocalyptic, themes existential and critical by The Independent. The author received standing ovation on several occasions during her book introductory tour in Australia. The writer herself declared in the prologue of the book that the story of this book is an extraordinary stroke of luck. The New York Times dubs it as an untidy and mostly lackluster book, sad to say, one that buries her rhetorical gifts under several inches of mulch but at the same time lauds it as one of the best love stories in book format. The Australian describes it as an encyclopedic book - taking in botany, history and humility - it is ultimately a reflection on the only significant question: how we live on earth.