The description of this book included "eloquent" writing and that is certainly appropriate. Another description would be "all-encompassing" because the author writes not only about trees but the environmental context. If a tree grows in a forest, it impacts life on a scale both macro and microscopic levels.

I am reviewing this book although I have read only about half of it. The publication date is long past and I wish to acknowledge this book. It is a profound reading experience. I am reading it as an ebook but wish I had one bound in paper. Yes, one made of trees. It is a book to keep on the bedside table. To read slowly, absorb, revel in. To interact with...underline comment and touch. For me, I have to read a chapter and then reflect, absorb. I do not want to rush the experience.

But I did not want to incur further delays in stating my belief that this book is not to be missed. Writing it was clearly a labor of love, one written with integrity and dedication. I find as a reader, I wish to approach it in the same way. 

The Songs of Trees is a lyrical reading experience.

A beautifully crafted scientific look at trees, their environments and their lives.  it is written for any layperson to understand . The author has gifted the reader with scientific observation of how trees give to our daily lives, how they contribute to the environment and what they mean to the world.  It is beautifully rendered, well written and I highly recommend this book for everyone interested in our environment. This book should be required reading for every biology student.  He is a amazing writer that captures the essence of the subject and this reader was enthralled throughout this outstanding body of work. Very well recommended for your reading enjoyment and educational use. 
Thank you for the ARC which did not influence my review.

If you're into trees then this is book you'll want to read, fascinating stories and information that I'd not heard before.

“A tree makes a sound all of its own.” ~~Seth Speaks 

Those words above are all I remember of that book by Jane Roberts. And when I saw the title of this book, I knew I wanted to read it for I wanted to know the songs of the trees.

David Haskell speaks of interconnectedness of all life, how all of life needs and depends on each other in order to survive. This reminded me of Buddha’s teachings, but perhaps they are also part of science.

Chief Dan George once said, “A man who lives and dies in the woods knows the secret life of trees,” and while still alive, the author knows the life of trees. It is as if he has become one with them, with nature, and with words.

“Raindrops bloat to exceptional sizes. The rain falls in big syllables; phonemes unlike the clipped rain speech of most other landmasses…heavy-misted clouds sag into treetops and dampen leaves without a drop falling, their touch producing the sound of an inked brush of a page.”

Last fall I was walking though our own small forest, the leaves were falling, and I heard them. I didn’t ever 
 remember ever hearing them fall before, but I must have. I came home and wrote this:

“Today when I walked through the woods 
the leaves were falling, and for the first time
that I could ever remember 
I actually heard them fall.
They fell like paper rain on the forest floor, 
and I thought that Mother Earth had heard them too,
but then I realized that maybe she weeps too loudly
these days and probably doesn't hear anything 
other than the sounds of her own pain.”

And this book is also about the pain that Mother Nature is feeling.  And sometimes I don’t know who to feel the most grief for, this earth or mankind who is destroying it.

When I reflect on the title of this book I think of how the creator sang songs to bring the universe into existence. One of these songs brought the trees, and in turn the trees now sing their own songs.  Man also has his own songs, but many have forgotten one of them, the song of the earth, because if he hadn’t forgotten, maybe this earth and all life on it wouldn’t be suffering so much. 

“She learned to listen to plants, to hear what they offered to humans. Every tree is a living person, with speech. Ceibo represent all plant life; you cannot listen to “one” tree’ there is no one tree living alone. She listens as she walks; she listens as the plants speak in her dreams. Our dreams are attached to the roots of plants, big and small, and to our ancestors.”

<img src="http://previews.123rf.com/images/atelopus/atelopus1110/atelopus111000015/10848810-Large-Ceibo-tree-with-green-photosynthetic-bark-Ceiba-trichisandra-Bombacaceae-A-large-emergent-spec-Stock-Photo.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="description"/>

Ceibo Tree

Note: I wish to thank the author for writing this book. It is one that I will cherish and read again and again. I also wish to thank NetGalley for giving it to me to read.