WI Book Festival Author Event: In Trees (Robert Moor)

October 17th 1:30-2:30pm Madison Museum of Contemporary Art – Lecture Hall

Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival.

One day, on a whim, Robert Moor set out to climb a tree near his home—unwittingly embarking on what would become a decade-long, globe-spanning adventure of intellectual and spiritual transformation. Pursuing the hidden wisdom of trees, he scales to the very top of a giant sequoia while filming a nature documentary with David Attenborough; he treks through swamps in Papua to reach a treehouse-dwelling tribe of hunter-gatherers; and he journeys to a remote research camp in Tanzania, where he spends a memorable night sleeping in a chimpanzee nest, seeking to understand our deep evolutionary history. Eventually, having gained a radical new outlook on both our gnarled past and our ever-branching future, he joins an intrepid clan of climate activists risking everything to halt construction of a new oil pipeline and save an ancient forest.

Along the way, Moor learns the art of “tree-thinking,” which, he discovers, has the power to break open some of humanity’s oldest questions: What is the secret to truly growing old? How do we set down deeper roots in an increasingly chaotic world? Most importantly, how should we—as individuals, as communities, as stewards of the earth—live?

A witty and relentlessly curious excursion through philosophy, history, and science, what begins as an ode to the miracle of trees blossoms into a joyous, daring, fiercely hopeful endeavor to arborize humanity.

Check out more Wisconsin Book Festival & Wisconsin Science Festival partner events here!