Suggested Books For Bonsai Enthusiasts

For those who can’t get enough words about trees, here are a selection of books you might enjoy.

These books cover a wide arc of tree storytelling, from their lives in nature to how we interact with them. They are not about bonsai, but rather might illuminate why bonsai captivate us.

Tree: A Life Story— A penetrating view through the lens and experience of an ecologist, David Suzuki, this tree biography takes a Douglas Fir from seedling to toppling over at great age. Suzuki leads us on a macro and micro journey through the Fir’s lifespan and how it changes and is changed by the biotic life around it. You learn as much about the nitrogen cycle, carpenter ants, and the haunting similarity of chlorophyll and blood as about the tree. A small treasure.

The Overstory: A Novel— No fewer than five people have gifted or suggested this book to me, and I’ve done about the same for others. A reviewer wrote, “…trees…are both the stealth protagonists and the beating, fine-grained heart of this strange, marvelous book.” It’s a Pulitzer Prize winner, a generational effort, and, if you have the emotional bandwidth for a deep dive of several generations of people and their lives with trees, worth it. A delicious set of stories.

In Trees: An Exploration— Due to be released on April 7, 2026 (pre-ordering has begun), Robert Moor’s book has already received strong reviews from Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, and dignitaries from natural history circles. From the top of a sequoia filming a documentary with David Attenborough to a tree full of chimpanzees, this investigative romp wonders what a tree is from the vantage of science, history, and philosophy. Moor interviewed me for an article in The New Yorker about bonsai, and I’m personally looking forward to this one.

I’ll offer another short book list again soon. Feel free to suggest your favorite “bonsai-adjacent” books in the comments.