Two Trees Make a Forest
In Search of My Family's Past Among Taiwan's Mountains and Coasts
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Two Trees Make a Forest
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Narrated by:
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Jessica J. Lee
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Written by:
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Jessica J. Lee
About this listen
National best seller
Winner of the 2020 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize
Winner of the 2021 Banff Mountain Book Prize in Adventure Travel
Shortlisted for Canada Reads 2021
One of The Globe and Mail’s “100 favourite books of 2020”
On CBC’s list of “the best Canadian nonfiction of 2020”
An exhilarating, anti-colonial reclamation of nature writing and memoir, rooted in the forests and flatlands of Taiwan from the winner of the RBC Taylor Prize for Emerging Writers
"Two Trees Make a Forest is a finely faceted meditation on memory, love, landscape - and finding a home in language. Its short, shining sections tilt yearningly toward one another; in form as well as content, this is a beautiful book about the distance between people and between places, and the means of their bridging." (Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland)
A chance discovery of letters written by her immigrant grandfather leads Jessica J. Lee to her ancestral homeland, Taiwan. There, she seeks his story while growing closer to the land he knew.
Lee hikes mountains home to Formosan flamecrests, birds found nowhere else on earth, and swims in a lake of drowned cedars. She bikes flatlands where spoonbills alight by fish farms, and learns about a tree whose fruit can float in the ocean for years, awaiting landfall.
Throughout, Lee unearths surprising parallels between the natural and human stories that have shaped her family and their beloved island. Joyously attentive to the natural world, Lee also turns a critical gaze upon colonialist explorers who mapped the land and named plants, relying on and often effacing the labor and knowledge of local communities.
Two Trees Make a Forest is a genre-shattering book encompassing history, travel, nature, and memoir, an extraordinary narrative showing how geographical forces are interlaced with our family stories.
©2020 Jessica J. Lee (P)2020 Hamish HamiltonWhat the critics say
WINNER of the 2021 Banff Mountain Book Prize in Adventure Travel
WINNER of the 2020 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize
Shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature
Shortlisted for Canada Reads 2021
On CBC’s list of “the best Canadian nonfiction of 2020”
One of:
The Globe and Mail’s “100 favourite books of 2020”
The Guardian's Best Books of the Year
CBC’s “24 Canadian books to read during Women's History Month”
Toronto Star's “Book gift ideas for lovers of the good life”
“Like a forest itself, Jessica J. Lee’s book is mesmerizing on the scale of both the intimate and the vast. With gorgeous language that sings in your head like the songs of the birds in the trees, she deftly stitches together nature and travel writing with history and memoir. This book is a triumph. It left me longing to pack my boots and set off for the dew-covered mountains of Taiwan.” —Juli Berwald, author of Spineless
“A poignant and beautifully written account of family, time, and place.” —Library Journal
“[A] luminescent exploration of family and landscape in Taiwan . . . a powerful, beautifully written account of the connections between people and the places they call home.” —The Times Literary Supplement
Featured Article: 8 Hidden Gems of Canadian Memoir
A quick search brings up lists of the memoir bestsellers: stories of celebrities, athletes, politicians and the rest. But what about the lesser-known stories? Unknown books? The unsung heroes? These memoirs can be just as - if not more - powerful, often because listeners can relate to them on a more personal level. We’ve compiled 8 of the finest hidden gems books of the memoir genre that tell these underrated but no less powerful real-life stories.
What listeners say about Two Trees Make a Forest
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Arual
- 2021-12-31
Well written … painfully slow in parts
I enjoyed the writing style … but it was a slog! I had a very difficult time finishing it! It felt like there were two very different novels happening in one book. Although I appreciated the story, and the author’s obvious skill, it was not my favourite!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Alchemist
- 2021-02-09
A great reminder!
The slow pace of the narrator and the story become a character in its telling. Chapter 13 was a great reminder of WHY we need to know our own history to enlighten us as to how far we have come and what next steps we should take.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Michael
- 2021-06-11
A really fun and interesting book
This story perfectly intertwined the authors Heritage and the adventures that she made in Taiwan.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Zeus
- 2021-05-07
Achingly Joyfully Poignant and Beautiful
This is one of the most beautifully and lovingly written books I have read in a very long time. The way Lee weaves together her search for home and her love for nature is arresting. I found myself crying at the beauty more than once. I look forward to her future books.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Jo Cullen
- 2021-02-27
I just couldn't get into it
I really wanted to like this book, but I found the botany aspect overshadowed the story so I was just waiting to get through those parts to get to the story. I didn't find myself connect to or anxious to learn about the fate of the characters, like I usually do. It, sadly, fell flat for me.
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1 person found this helpful