February: The Overstory, by Richard Powers
We met at R's. The flat was warmer, which mattered, because the book is a long book and we had a lot to say.
The opening section — eight separate lives, eight starting points — divided us cleanly. K and R loved it as a setup. M, who reads quickly and impatiently, found the back-and-forth tiring and skipped ahead twice, which she confessed only halfway through the discussion.
By the second pot we agreed: it is a book about trees in the way that Moby-Dick is a book about whales, which is to say it is about everything else. The middle section drags; the final section repays the dragging.
K admitted she had picked it because she wanted us all to plant something afterwards. R has bought a small ash sapling which is currently failing to thrive on her windowsill.