Thank you net galley for giving me this opportunity to read 'Birnam Wood'.
This story takes place in New Zealand.
Mira started a gardening group called 'Birnam Wood' with other like-minded friends. They will find or will find vacant land/properties and plant flowers, vegetables etc.
Enter Robert Lemoine who happens to be an American billionaire.
Robert is looking for land to build his bunker.
There is a landslide at Korowal Pass and the town of Thorndike is cut off.
Mira thinks this is a perfect place for her and her group to start planting, but, Robert is also interested in the land.
I found this book slow to start. It is written in three parts. It didn't start to get really good until part two then it just got better.
The two main characters Mura and Robert, I didn't like them at all. The only character who I had empathy for was Tony.
Because of the slow start I gave it three stars.

I DNF'd this book after about 10%. After attempting to get back into it a few times I decided to stop as I feel this book just isn't for me (not easy for me to do!). I did not connect to the characters or plot.

Birnam Wood is a story about conservation and conspiracy. While I liked the environmental aspect of the story, the theories, and the political views, I wish it was presented more subtly. There were many long-winded speeches about the importance of conservation and privacy and government conspiracies.

I enjoyed the multiperspective aspect of it, though some characters felt a little too stereotypical for my taste. Parts 2 and 3 read much faster as everything unfolds. I still don't know what to think of the ending. It was a little disappointing, after all the build-up.

Overall, I would recommend it if you enjoy eco-fiction and conspiracy. It is a well-paced, well-written story that is worth your time.

Birnam Wood, the wood, is Macbeth’s downfall coming for him in ways he did not at all foresee.

Birnam Wood, the group, is a loose collective devoted to growing food in underused urban spaces.

Birnam Wood, the novel centers on Mira, the self-absorbed self-proclaimed leader and idea-generator of BW, her quiet sidekick/roommate Shelley who handles all the real, boring, administrative work out of chronic self-doubt and need for Mira’s approval, and Tony, a trust fund grandson who can’t settle to anything but obsessing over his once-upon-a-time drunken hookup with Mira.

They and their largely nameless fellow travelers maintain dozens of urban food sites with and without permission, electrical connections, and legit water supplies, dispersing their harvests among land providers, each other, and the city’s food charities. Nobody can fault their work ethic, even if their self-absorption and petty squabbles make for dull reading until nearly a quarter of the way through the tome.

This is not eco-thriller territory. What little action occurs is all tiny and mundane, on the scale of washing dishes or having a bowl of soup, and almost entirely lacking in suspense or tension or danger. As many reviewers before me have mentioned, you can probably skip or skim the first 100 pages and enjoy the rest as a thriller no more improbable than any Bond movie, although with a more ambiguous ending.

Eventually, Mira’s newest self-laudatory scheme brings them into the orbit of billionaire capitalist plunderer Robert, another prime candidate for the blind hubris of a Macbeth marching obvious to his own doom.

After stumbling over Mira in a place she has no business being, Robert decides to use the collective for PR cover while he secretly strips a lot of rare-earth minerals out of a national park, destroying irreplaceable ecosystems as a disregarded byproduct. A bit of psychological manipulation and a judicious infusion of cash brings Mira, and thus the BW collective, into his personal puppet show. It’s a classic environmentalists-versus-capitalists tale except, as mentioned above, you don’t care enough to root for any of them.

The thriller part starts to crank up steam around the half, and thereafter gains pace as well as some gross improbabilities that would be easier to overlook in a 2-hour movie than in a novel. Given the collective’s focus, there is less garden or vegetative imagery than you might expect, although the tidbit that fennel inhibits the growth of other plants makes a rather neat metaphor for both Robert and Mira. There are some shaky forensic assumptions that wouldn’t fool most watchers of modern crime shows. For the grand finale, picture Hamlet by way of South American drug cartels.

The novel is competently written in plain language and – no mean feat - manages to be even-handed in its disdain for all sides in the environmentalists-versus-capitalists battle. The most convincing part, for me, was the cynical presentation of just how readily governments local and national let environmental protections fall by the wayside through inadequate regulation, lax oversight, and non-existent enforcement. None of these cutout characters can beat a real-live politician for sheer self-centered hubris and willingness to overlook or whitewash almost any environmental or social catastrophe if by so doing he/they can gain a single scintilla more power or influence or favourable press.

.

3.75stars- BIRNAM WOOD by Eleanor Catton is a contemporary, adult, stand alone psychological thriller focusing on a New Zealand collective calling themselves Birnam Wood, a co-op, a commune of hippie-style thirty-somethings who illegally plant sustainable, organic gardens in neglected spaces, and off-road areas for personal use and to share/sell to the otherwise unaware.

Told from third person perspective BIRNAM WOOD follows Mira Bunting, the so-called leader of the Birnam Wood gardening collective, and a woman who is struggling to keep the collective afloat. In the wake of a landslide that all but wiped out a major thoroughfare and pass, Mira goes in search of some property to confiscate for Birnam Wood, property owned by the recently knighted Sir Owen Darvish but has apparently been sold to American billionaire/ widower Robert Lemoine. All does not appear as it should be when one of their own, amateur journalist Tony Gallo, begins to question the who, how and why but Mira’s only concern is the ‘free land’, and the ability to equally grow crops. As Robert Lemoine’s intentions become clear to Tony, Mira and her friend Shelley are at an impasse, finding themselves in an impossible situation, a situation of which they no longer have any control. People will die, secrets revealed show collusions and conspiracies meant to deceive.

BIRNAM WOOD begins extremely slow and exceptionally dry as the author begins to build a foundation for her story line premise. The first twenty to twenty-five percent reads like a study in sociology; a social psychology experiment ; a cautionary tale of capitalism and consumerism, rich and poor, ecology and greed, murder, power and control. The character driven premise is dramatic, twisted, haunting and tragic; the characters are desperate, idealistic and challenging.



THE READING CAFÉ: http://www.thereadingcafe.com/birnam-wood-by-eleanor-catton-a-review/


GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5368651113


AMAZON CA: https://www.amazon.ca/review/R1UWSD74QH8I3A/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0B16NYW16


BOOKBUB: https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/693694580


B&N (Sandy_thereadingcafe) posted

Ibooks (Sandy Sch) posted

GOOGLE PLAY (Sandy Sch) posted

BINGEBOOKS (Sandy S) posted

An activist gardening collective, a charming but ruthless billionaire, an aspiring journalist, and a recently-knighted landowner each play a role in Birnam Wood, a tightly-woven eco-thriller penned by Eleanor Catton.

Mira Bunting, leader of the Birnam Wood gardening collective, is the first character we encounter. Mira plays her cards close to the vest. While talking up the importance of the group’s mission to other members, she keeps to herself some of the group’s less-than-legal activities, such as trespassing and small-time theft of tools and resources.

When a landslide cuts off one of the roads leading into Thorndike, New Zealand, the town is left isolated. Many of the residents, whose jobs rely on through traffic, decide to leave. But one person’s bane is another’s boon. With fewer people around, Mira sees an opportunity to utilize the land for free under little to no scrutiny. She goes to scout out her preferred location for growing the collective’s crops, a farm that the owners had planned to subdivide but subsequently withdrew from the market. She has reason to believe the landowners are not currently in residence.

While at the farm, she meets billionaire Robert Lemoine, who is posing as a survivalist looking for a place to build a bunker. Robert tells Mira that he has made a confidential agreement to purchase the farm from the owners, once certain conditions are met. Lemoine’s real reason for securing that particular piece of land is more sinister, with implications for the environment that would send Mira running if she knew.

Though Mira admits that Lemoine scares her, the billionaire makes her an offer she feels she can’t refuse: funding for Birnam Wood, and the opportunity to use the farm’s land, in order, Robert says, to get back at the land’s absentee owner, who Robert claims has slighted him. After a heated discussion at one of the Birnam Wood collective’s meetings, Mira sells the group on the idea of taking up Robert on his offer. This sets the groundwork for building tension and a shocking finale as the various characters, and their interests, collide in unexpected ways.

It was Birnam Wood’s positioning as an eco-thriller that enticed me to review this book—I care about the environment, and I enjoyed the political thriller State of Terror by Hilary Clinton and Louise Penny, so I figured this book would be up my alley.

Catton offers well-rounded characters, giving the reader a deep dive into their thoughts and motivations. In Birnam Wood’s early going, given the amount of time spent in character development, I wondered a bit about the novel’s “thriller” aspect. I needn’t have worried. Catton delivered on both ends of the eco-thriller proposition, delving into environmental issues while also providing a gripping plot that drew me forward, particularly once I got past the mid-way point.

Throughout the book, characters engage in discussions about environmental and socio-cultural topics, either in dialogue with one another, or in their internal thoughts. This, too, was part of the book’s appeal—providing some thought-provoking sections that left me considering the various themes explored even after I finished the book. In fact, Birnam Wood left me with a sense of disquiet. Some of the events, though fictional, seemed all too plausible, leaving me to wonder whether similar environmental shenanigans are being performed elsewhere. The intrusive surveillance activities engaged in so casually by Robert Lemoine were also unsettling.

I had only two relatively small beefs with Birnam Wood. First, one particular character’s actions near the end didn’t seem consistent with the image I’d developed of her. Second—and this is merely based on my own preferences—I found the ending abrupt, and re-read the last few pages to make sure I understood what had happened. I’d have preferred to see a few more loose ends tied off, though I also understand that the author might have had a reason for writing the finale in the manner that she did.

Those observations are small in the grand scheme of things. All in all, I found Birnam Wood to be a gripping book with much to offer, and would readily recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for providing Birnam Wood for review consideration. All opinions stated above are my own.

Great read! Full Murder in Common review here:
https://murderincommon.com/review/eleanor-catton-birnam-wood/

If you loved Hummingbird Salamander, this book is going to be perfect for you. With a super unique eco-friendly plot, we follow twenty nine year old Mira Bunting, a budding Horticulturist, as she scouts out her new planting location.
The Korowai Pass has closed after a handful of small earthquakes triggered a landslide. It was bad. The dead weren't uncovered for weeks, and the town of Thorndike was effectively cut off from the other cities around it. Which makes it the perfect town for Mira's group of anarchist gardeners, planting useful crops in public spaces, hiding in plain site.
Though this was a very unique book with intense plot twists, it was paced very slowly with lots of viewpoint changes, and lots of long winding sentences. Personally I had a really hard time getting into it, even as an avid plant lover and wishful anarchist. This book just wasn't for me. I really did enjoy Mira's chapters though, and that's why it's a solid three stars in my books.

(mutatedlibrary.wordpress.com)

Well this is a first for me in a long time , I had a really hard time getting into this book. It was very wordy and I had difficulty I. The beginning following the characters and what was actually going on. I almost choose not to go on reading it. I had to reread several parts to try and understand who and what was going on. About 40 percent in I finally had a grasp on characters and an idea of what the story was. I get the point of the story but for me it was long and had a hard time holding my interest .

I voluntarily received a free advanced copy from NetGalley and all opinions are my own

Birnam Wood is a guerrilla gardening collecting in New Zealand. They scope out vacant or unused land and quietly plant food gardens. Mira started Birnam Wood with her friend Shelley and she’s just found their next big project. In a rural area adjacent to Korowai National Park, is a property for sale and she thinks it would be perfect. Most recently owned by the newly knighted *Sir* Owen Darvish and his wife who inherited it from her family, it’s suddenly been taken off of the market after a landslide occurs. When Mira goes to check it out, she unexpectedly meets Robert Lemoine, an American billionaire who’s flown in on a private plane and tells Mira that he’s buying the place. Meanwhile, former Birnam Wood member and aspiring journalist Tony also gets interested for different reasons and he’s keen to find out if there’s anything going on.

While Birnam Wood starts out a little slowly as Catton introduces the characters and basic plot points, not unlike The Luminaries (if I recall correctly), once she’s placed all the chess pieces on the board, the moves start coming faster and faster. When it got going, it started to feel a bit like watching a thriller/action movie which isn’t surprising given Catton’s been writing screenplays for the last while. I recall having a similar feeling when reading Damon Galgut’s The Promise and he also writes for film and television. Catton’s work adapting Austen is likely also reflected in the many moments of nonverbal communication as looks passed between characters can mean many different things as the story goes on. Catton asks us to reflect on how we communicate in times when we can’t speak out loud, setting us up for a critical moment in the climax of the book.

This is probably one of the things that made Birnam Wood such an enjoyable read for me. Like lots of literary fiction, it tackles serious themes and ideas-environmental degradation, generational tensions, in-fighting in progressive movements, and the appallingly hubristic destructive forces of billionaire entrepreneurs-but it wraps them up in a story with interesting characterization and lots of action. As my buddy reading partner said, it’s nice to read “page-turning litfic”.

The title comes from Macbeth and Catton has said that themes in Macbeth influenced its writing (it’s some 30+ years since I read it so a viewing is in order), but I couldn’t help thinking how apt a play on the words of the title was as the phrase “burn it all down” kept echoing in my head. Catton left me with the sense that either someone needs to “burn it all down” or indeed, someone *will* burn it all down to the ground. The former feels positive, getting rid of “dead wood”, a cleansing fire to allow new shoots to rise and it comes out in Tony’s thoughts and speeches which, at the beginning, make him seem annoyingly pedantic but by the end, had me wondering if Catton had channeled her own fury into him as he longs for someone, anyone to notice and care. The latter meanwhile conveys scorched earth: it’s what you do when you don’t care what happens after you’re gone as long as you can get what you want. Catton takes us to the edge of the precipice, to see how close to the edge we are from where there’s no going back from what we are allowing to happen to our planet. I was reminded of Dr. Seuss’s the Lorax who says, “unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

I appreciated Catton taking on the issue of mining for the rare metals that make all of our technology function. In Birnam Wood, she manages to take on the destructive forces of both the software and hardware that we all use constantly. While we often talk about the former in terms of the negative forces of social media, we ignore or are ignorant of the latter (if you want to know more, I highly recommend checking out the work of photographer Edward Burtynsky). We don’t want to know, as the saying goes, how the sausage is made. But we need to. Out of sight should not be out of mind.

Birnam Wood is a pessimistic book but it’s also a call to action, to notice, to push back, and to do something. Catton sees hope mostly in the younger generations to fight for and recover what older generations have squandered. It was interesting to buddy read this with someone much younger than I am as we each represented these different generations and it was he who highlighted Catton’s depiction of millenials that I mightn’t have noticed as clearly.

Birnam Wood will be eligible for multiple prizes (the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Booker, and the Canadian prizes) in the coming months and I’ll be interested to see how it fares. There are mixed reviews out, but I really enjoyed it. Give it time to get going but then buckle up, because it’s a non-stop ride.

This book had so much potential. You have a small group of basically eco-enthusiasts. There idea is off the grid sustainability. Good idea, except they are stealing space and resources from people to do it. You have a billionaire engaged in eco-terrorism. All the elements are there for a tense and dramatic thriller. You have some tense moments (like Shelley and the van, Tony and the cliff), that we get to see.

But all the important bits of action happen off camera (so to speak). We spend so much time being told what the character's motivations are, that we don't actually see what is going on, we are only told after the fact that it happened.

For me personally, this is another case where an absolutely fabulous plot didn't have the character structure to hold it up so it fell flat.

And the ending was so unsatisfying. I won't give it away, but it really fell flat for me.

I will give this a bok a three star because the elements were there, and the story had potential to be amazing. It just didn't quite work for me.

3.5 Stars

The last Eleanor Catton novel I read was in 2013 when her The Luminaries won both the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize. Birnam Wood is 400 pages shorter, but I think it could be even shorter.

Birnam Wood is an idealistic, anti-capitalist gardening collective which plants crops on unused or abandoned land, often without permission. One of the founders, Mira Bunting, discovers a farm in Thorndike that has been temporarily abandoned and decides to check it out as a place to expand operations. The farm, belonging to Owen and Jill Darvish, is in the process of being purchased by Robert Lemoine, an American billionaire who has chosen it as the site for his survivalist bunker. Lemoine offers Mira money for Birnam Wood’s operations, claiming that his investment might expedite his application for New Zealand citizenship. Tony Gallo, a wannabe journalist and former member of the collective, doesn’t trust Lemoine and argues that the arrangement goes against the collective’s ideals, so while some members begin planting on the farm, he sets out to investigate Lemoine to uncover his real motive.

An uneven pace is an issue. The novel begins very slowly. The first third of the novel gives a lot of backstory on the various characters. There’s a lot of telling, rather than showing, so it feels like an information dump. This is not a way to grab the reader’s attention. Tension does ramp up in the second third, and the last section is definitely suspenseful. With a great deal happening, the ending feels rushed. (In keeping with the Shakespearean reference, I’d expected the book to have five parts.)

None of the characters are particularly likeable. Everyone has his/her motives and proves to be willing to manipulate and deceive others to advance personal agendas. For instance, both Mira and Shelley, partners in Birnam Wood, are not above keeping information from each other. Like Macbeth, each character is ambitious but blind or willfully ignorant because of a certain degree of hubris. Jill Darvish certainly acknowledges that she and Owen courted a man’s business and approval even though they had always known that he was not a good person. People try to appear to be ethical but will justify unethical behaviour if it’s in their self-interest. Tony, for instance, accuses the collective of selling its soul, but he is desperately in search of an exclusive story that will bring him fame. There is a definite villain who is absolutely amoral, but no one is guilt-free in how events unfold.

The plot is action-packed. Besides unscrupulous manipulation, there are clandestine activities, surveillance drones, phone hacking, mercenaries, armed chases, obstruction of justice, and murder. Greed and corruption abound. The picture of society that is given is not a positive one: wealth tends to guarantee safety from prosecution for wrongdoing; profit takes precedence over preventing global catastrophes like climate change; and even philanthropic groups have to bend their principles in order to survive.

The style may not appeal to all readers. Sentences of 200 words are not uncommon. Tony is a mansplainer so we are subjected to his tirades. Trying to follow the discussion at Birnam Wood’s hui is excruciating!

Readers approaching this novel must be prepared to move past its tedious opening section.

I found the style of writing in this book to be quite unique, which may not be to everyone's taste. However, I can certainly see how it would be a great read for someone who enjoys a novel with only three chapters. The writing style felt like it was a mix of memoir and textbook, which made it a bit harder for me to stay focused. Additionally, the amount of pandering didn't help me to connect with the characters. Despite this, I found it to be an interesting eco-thriller, although it fell short than I had anticipated.

I really liked Eleanor Catton's "The Luminaries" with its many characters, dense, clever plotting, and great character development. So I knew I was in for exploration of character, complex and conflicting motivations, with the added benefit of a story dealing with people concerned about the ethics and economics of materials extraction and food production in "Birnam Wood".

We also get numerous analyses of culture through one of Catton's creations, a budding investigative journalist, who renews his friendship with Mira, who has been running a guerilla gardening group, and who has a slippery relationship with honesty. Her sort of friend and the person actually running the group is Shelley, and hers and Mira's relationship is pretty much on the rocks at the book's start thanks to Mira. Add in manipulative and ruthless American billionaire Lemoine who purchases land that Mira has targeted for her latest guerilla garden, and you get a rapidly escalating situation leading to violence.

I dove into this book, and was rewarded with the complex, complicated characters I wanted, but found the pacing to be lacking. I kept waiting to be captured by the narrative and that wasn't happening. I ended up skimming my way through parts of the book, as I found the plot slow to evolve. At the same time, I did like how the characters, despite their intentions at the book's outset, compromised their ethics and ended up in a dangerous and ugly situation by the end.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Penguin Random House Canada for this ARC in exchange for my review.

I wanted to read this since the first time I saw it's cover. I hadn't even read the description and I was entering giveaways for an ARC, so huge thank you to NetGalley for providing me with one.

This is the story of a capitalist and his involvement in an unofficial non-profit gardening group, called Birnam Wood, that uses unmonitored spaces to plant and grow crops, ultimately for the greater good.

Although technically lawless, this group works together to pull together resources, care for crops, and work on trade. Every major decision they make goes to a vote in an open forum.

When Lemoine, the American capitalist billionaire decides to invest in Birnam Wood, it seems to good to be true and sends an aspiring journalist on the hunt for a story worthy of making his career. A lot more than that will be discovered.

Birnam Wood will have you questioning everyone's trustworthiness and motivations as scary secrets are uncovered.

With touches of real life corruption, Birnam Wood is a political story showing just how big the gaps can be between everyday citizens and the elite and just how much power money can have over real life situations and the outcomes that follow.

It caught me off guard more than once with an end that you won't expect

This story is about Birnam Wood, a group of gardeners who plant sustainable gardens in areas that they don’t have permission to plant.
The leader of the group is Mira. She is scouting out an abandoned farm for their next project when she runs into Robert Lemoine. Robert is a shady American billionaire who owns the property. Robert agrees to let Birnam wood plant on his property, but is he really trustworthy.

I think a lot of people would enjoy this book. However it just wasn’t my cup of tea and I was unable to finish it. I got bogged down in the first 1/4 of the book. Frankly it was so slow moving it bored me to tears, and reading it felt like a chore. Some of that may be me though, I don’t think that literary fiction is my jam. The run on sentences also drove me nuts.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada for providing me with an eARC of this book to read and review.

The characters seemed intriguing with the premise of a guerrilla gardening collective an eccentric billionaire who want to build his bunker for the end of days. The description sound enticing to me, I was disappointed with the lengthy opening pages, spending too much time on the descriptive writing cantered on the Birnam Wood cooperative characters. It moved too slow for me. I felt like being preached to. I really wanted to enjoy the book but it was dragged out. I DNF. The book just wasn’t for me Unfortunately I couldn’t hang on for 175 pages for the plot to pick up. will recommend to people who enjoy this type of writing style.
I would like to thank Penguin Random house with gifting me with the ARC in return for my honest review

My Quick Take: I found this to be an ultimately interesting and satisfying read, though it had a changeable nature!
***
I haven’t read Catton’s 2013 Booker Prize-winning The Luminaries, but her new novel was getting a lot of buzz so I was excited to give it a try. How could I not want to, given that Stephen King said, “As a multilayered, character-driven thriller, it’s as good as it gets.” Okay! And it seemed right up my alley: an eco-thriller that promised environmental issues and scares.

New Zealand’s Birnam Wood is a grassroots environmental collective that farms on private and public land, harvesting food for donation and sale. On the sly, leaders Mira and Shelley guerrilla garden as well, planting in spaces without permission. Former member Tony reappears, and challenges their political stance, and then an even more risky deal presents itself in the form of a Libertarian billionaire.

The beginning of this novel started quite slowly. It was well written and interesting, but it required a lot of effort from my brain, which is fine. There were long pages of character backstories. Catton’s characters began debating politics at length, and even though I’m moderately well versed in some of the political issues around the Left and Right, I wasn’t sure I was smart enough to know how much this was satire, and how much Catton meant this to be taken at face value. Essentially, though, I think it was satire, and quite fascinating.

I settled in for an interesting but long ride. However, the book is a bit of a chameleon. At about the 50% mark, things really picked up. Here was the thriller bit! The pace quickened, and I realized the first half of political talk and character exploration had neatly set up the second half. I was quite riveted. I couldn’t wait to finish the last bit–in a good way. It’s not horror or a classic thriller by any means, but it has those elements and is quite smart about it. I particularly liked the ending and the very last sentence: so much to contemplate!

What happens when you make a deal with the devil? Do the ends justify the means? What’s a woke guerrilla gardener to do? You’ll have to read it to find out…

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for a digital copy in exchange for my unbiased review.

Between having to verify meanings of so many words in such complicated sentence structures and dealing with unlikeable characters, this was a struggle to complete reading, much less reviewing.

If you are looking to increase your vocabulary and think in more complicated thought patterns, you will probably enjoy this novel.

The subject matter is even heavy - eco terrorism by a wealthy high tech businessman who uses others to camouflage his activities, including using Mira Bunting a horticulturist and activist who believes every bit of earth should be growing food for the world.

Set in New Zealand, where growing seasons are opposite those in North America, was a challenge that I enjoyed.

Delighted to include this title in the March edition of Novel Encounters, my regular column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction, for the Books section of Zoomer magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)