How delighted I was to receive an advance copy of Birnam Woods from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The Booker Prize winning author Eleanor Catton returns with a character-driven literary thriller that has been on the “most anticipated books of 2023” lists of the New York Times, Lit Hub, Oprah, and other publications and the novel does not disappoint. Birnam Woods, an illusion to Macbeth, is an activist gardening collective founded by the 29 year old charismatic Mira Bunting. Birnam Woods cultivates empty tracts of land and, on those occasions when they obtain the landowners’ permission to access the space, provide the hosts with half the yield of every crop. When a landslide closes the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a former sheep station abandoned, Mira sees an opportunity for Birnam Wood to have a shot at financial viability. But, Mira must compete for the property with the billionaire founder of an American surveillance and drone-manufacturing company, Robert Lemoine, who has quietly bought the land to ostensibly build a doomsday bunker for the end-times. Lemoine, an obvious sendup of the Silicon Valley venture capitalist and contrarian Peter Thiel, finds himself challenged by his encounter with Mira. Needing to acquire a stake in a New Zealand business in order to obtain citizenship and seeking a subterfuge to shield his extraction of rare-earth minerals from a national park adjacent to the farm which will make him then “richest person who had ever lived” despite the environmental damage that he has already unleashed, Lemoine decides to fund Birnam Wood’s activities. The question raised by the satirical novel is whether Birnam Woods can maintain its purity of purpose when it becomes associated with aggressively evil big tech. Birnam Wood is a dark and brilliant novel about the violence and tawdriness of late capitalism with a surprising conclusion that propels it into a truly great book.

The setting is New Zealand and the book will appeal to a variety of readers-ecologists,computer geeks, mystery-thriller lovers, and government conspiracy advocates. The characters are well depicted, and the complexities of the plot will keep you on your toes. It starts slowly and the political rants particularly in the first third of the book are at times tiresome but hang in there “ for the ride”.The ending is a total surprise, but absolutely fitting. A really good read, with lots of positives about the character traits of New Zealanders.

I read Birnam Wood and I did not know about the connection to Shakespeare's Macbeth and Shakespearean wit, drama, and immersion in character until I read some of the reviews. This is a dense book that takes a while to get through. Living most of my life in a major US city, the crime of guerrilla gardening seems like a petty crime that actually may do more good than harm. Throwing a few veggies in a vacant lot, behind buildings, or in a park for philanthropic good, seems like decent undertaking other than trespassing is involved.

The book is in three parts and the mystery comes in the third part when Mira meets Robert Lemoine. Robert is an American billionaire that buys land and claims he is building his end of the world bunker. However, he has other uses for the land that are not so honest. He allows the Birnam Wood group grow their crops on his land. This is where the book becomes a psychological thriller/crime novel.

The book does become interesting when the characters do what they must for their own survival. There are moral questions that come up in the book and consequences for actions and in action. I have recently read some books on morality and this book gives your some moral questions to ponder: right, wrong, good, evil, truth, lies.

While this may not have been my favorite book of 2023, it is a good read. I believe I missed some of the nuances that the author meant to get across. I enjoyed the book enough to recommend reading it. This book is not a fast paced crime novel. It will appeal more to someone interested in the political ideals, activism, and moral lines being crossed.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy of Birnam Wood in return for an honest review. #BirnamWood #NetGalley

I wanted to love this environmental thriller more than I did, but all in all it was an entertaining and very intriguing read. I definitely recommend giving it a try. You may love it as many others do!

My thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus & Giroux for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I think I’ve found another genre niche that speaks to me: criminal environmentalists. Birnam Wood is about a grassroots conservationist group in New Zealand that has the misfortune of crossing paths with a techbro billionare who, wonder of wonders, is planning on wreaking havoc on the environment to get even more rich. The story is broken up into 3 parts, and alternates between the POV of several main characters. And not a single one of these characters is a good person! A large portion of this book focuses on the inner mechanisms that go on within the MCs, and the author does not refrain from being brutally honest when it comes to each person’s faults — and I ate that shit up. I feel like the author gives just the right dose of cynicism for me to dislike each character fundamentally, yet root for them and sympathize for them in turn. I don’t think I truly got into the book until Part 3, but it really just pulled the whole thing together in a delicious way. And that ending! Did not expect that! I strongly recommend to those who enjoy slow-paced, suspenseful literary fiction.

I loved Eleanor Catton's Luminaries, a Booker Prize-winning novel that has remained among my favourites. At over 800 pages, I raced through The Luminaries with much enjoyment. Birnam Wood is only half its length, but I regret to say it seemed much longer. The narrative is thought-provoking. It includes political, philosophical, social, and environmental issues. It scrutinizes the main character's motivations, ideals, actions, beliefs, and outcomes intensely. The focus was on a diverse group of characters, none of whom I found appealing. It might be considered a complex literary mystery, and I felt it tedious for much of the plot. I think the book's format kept me from thoroughly engaging. Its long chapters, paragraphs, and run-on sentences were not in my comfort zone.

Birnam Wood is the name of a guerilla gardening group consisting of young women with an anti-capitalist agenda. They carry out their planting in abandoned areas and unused property. Some of their gardening they regard as philanthropic, and much is illegal. They sell some of their products but are far from breaking even. Birnam Wood is named after a quotation in MacBeth and gives a sense of foreboding. Some members would like a name change to a Maori phrase, but others consider this would be cultural appropriation. Its predominant members are its leader, Mira Bunting, Shelly Noakes, her second in command, and Tony Gallo, who has just returned from teaching in Mexico and backpacking in Central and South America. He resents the fact that he was raised in privilege. He feels underestimated and carries romantic feelings for Mira but is ignored. Tony's return to a Birnam Wood meeting results in his angry tirade against capitalism and rudely arguing with another member. After his outburst, he leaves the meeting feeling embarrassed and unwelcome. Mira is manipulative, and her ideas may be met with debate, but she usually comes out on top. Her best friend is Shelly, her second in command, who feels that Mira does not value her ideas and she wants out of the group.

A landslide has cut off the town of Thorndike. A large abandoned farm is owned by Owen Darvish and his wife, a loving conservative couple. He has just been knighted and is admired because he is involved with conservation, but he also is connected with a business that makes surveillance drones headed by an American billionaire, Robert Lemoine. Lemoine is a man of great charm, charismatic, and probably a psychopath. He informs Mira that he has bought Darvish's property and tells her that the Birnam Wood group is welcome to garden there. He offers the group a large sum of money as a starter. Machinery is excavating part of the land, which Lemoine says is for a survival bunker for himself when the apocalypse arrives. Can the gardening group trust him, and how well can they trust each other?

Everyone is led by self-interest and their own motivations. There is a lack of cooperation, secrets and deceit. How will Birnam Wood react to the infusion of a large sum of money from a billionaire, and what is his sudden interest in ecology? Tony aspires to become an investigative journalist and feels something underhanded is happening with Lemoine at its villainous centre. Tony now camps on the land, sleeping rough in the forest in bad weather. He uncovers shocking environmental degradation but is now in extreme danger and on the run.

The story hurtles towards a dark, bloody conclusion.
I wish to thank NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of Birnam Wood. The date of publication is set for March 7th.

Too Dark and Perplexing

Is it sinful to ensure our survival? It’s definitely impulsive. Catton’s thriller forms the basis with tangled characters in an unpredictable setting and plot.

Mira Bunting, twenty-nine years old, is the innovator of Birnam Wood. Mira has a friend Shelley Noakes who believes she is more sensible than Mira and initially tries to outsmart her and leave. Insurrectionist New Zealand gardeners scavenge for resources and plant food on unused land. A natural disaster created a special opportunity for the this band of unregulated friends, calling themselves Birnam Wood. Mira discovers a vacant farming property which was deserted due to an earthquake. The original owner, Owen Darvish, is transferring ownership of this property to Robert Lemoine, a sketchy businessman.

The lead protagonist is Tony Gallo who pontificates on almost every subject and is mortified when Mira tells the collective that this billionaire, Robert Lemoine, wants to invest in their project to the tune of $100,000. Thus, there is a departure of purist, socialist values except for Tony who surveils Robert’s arsenal. What could go wrong? Well, almost everything. Catton entertains the reader with fascinating plotting and surprising twists. What was meant to be a group goal results in terrifying hubris taking center stage.

Is Mira’s group a cult or are they purists? The author endeared me to this setting. In fact, the novel takes place in 2017, the beginning of Jacinda Ardern’s term as Prime Minister. Respected globally, she shocked the world when she announced she would no longer serve as the leader of New Zealand. She felt she was the wrong person, stating…”I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice…” Did she also trust the wrong people? Or do female leaders have to prove themselves every day?

This novel became a page-turner embodying power, greed and always hope and courage. However, the prose meanders and I had to go back and re-read. It was difficult to stick with it. I realize Catton is lauded for her talent, but someone once told me if you don’t understand the movie or the book, it is not really that good.

My gratitude to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All opinions expressed are my own.

This book moves from the good to great category in the last 75-100 pages. Don't get me wrong, I was enjoying it up until that point, but then it became obvious that Catton had written another amazing novel. The characters in this story are fascinating. And varied. We start with the anarchist gardening collective, Birnam Wood, run by Mira and Shelley. After years of just scraping by, Mira is offered a lot of money by a billionaire, Robert Lemoine. Everyone has a different motivation and goal, and there are many secrets being kept. How does an anarchist group react to a large sum of money? Why is a billionaire suddenly interested in ecology and gardening? It's both an eco/psychological thriller and a meditation on the motivations and self-interests of individuals.

"Birnam Wood is on the move . . .

Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice: on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. Natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned.

But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Robert Lemoine, the enigmatic American billionaire, has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker--or so he tells Mira when he catches her on the property. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?"

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus & Giroux for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed herein are my own.

We get an omniscient point of view that practically tells the entire story. We do switch characters, a limited number at least, and get each of their personal thoughts, but there is less interaction between the characters, and hardly any dialogue.

It is these thick paragraphs that bogged down the reading for me, with hardly any breaks just endless thoughts and ruminations on past or present circumstances and philosophies.

The action comes later, and yet still somewhat slowed. The book was listed as a mystery/thriller but that isn’t quite true. Although there is something a bit unknown. There is practically no tension in the book.

I suppose I took the book too seriously, as it did have a light-hearted type feel to it, despite some of the content. After finishing I realized I didn’t really like, nor connect with, any of the characters. And I thoroughly did not like the ending. Yet I don’t feel it was a waste to have read the book. I found a moment or two where I learned something about New Zealand, the character of the people there.

I was one of those readers who was make impatient by Eleanor Catton’s widely-praised last novel, The Luminaries — mostly because I found it to be too esoteric; too full of literary tricks and authorial fingers in the plot for my taste — yet I still recognised Catton as a wonderfully talented writer and I looked forward to whatever she came out with next. As a follow-up, Birnam Wood does not disappoint: a thrilling bit of political ecofiction with compelling characters, an immersive setting, and timely commentary on modern social ills, I gobbled this up (aided by the fact that it’s half as long as her last novel). I can see a complaint that this might be a bit potboilery — and especially when compared to the literary fireworks of Catton’s last work — but I personally loved everything about this and am rounding up to five stars.

Catton remains an exceedingly clever and talented writer—Birnam Wood definitely lives up to the hype (both online and in my own heart, since I loved The Luminaries). One of the things I love about Catton's writing is how deeply it explores the interiority of her character's minds. You feel at once that you know their deepest thoughts, and yet there is always something unknowable about each character, creating a continuously new reading experience as the story winds on.

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention the last third of the book. Dang! It flies by and you'll be hooked the moment the twist happens, trying to figure out what will happen next, or just happily along for the ride (I was the latter). Even as the intensity ratchets up, Catton's writing remains unflinching and it's a delight to see how the pieces all rush together. The ending is exceedingly dark and ambiguous—Catton shines a light on all parties, making it impossible to place blame on just one individual or group.

Full of fascinating, annoying and despicable characters, this story wonders at our modern life and the ethical, political battles argued over online and in groups of friends. Catton is a masterful satirist and puppeteer, and biting observer of our present day. I cannot wait for whatever she dreams up next, and in the meantime, I'll go back and read her debut novel.

This was my first Eleanor Catton novel, and it won't be my last. Still not sure how I feel about that wild ending (although I can't STOP thinking about it ...), but her intelligent grasp of character drew me in and kept me hooked. Fantastic.

The cover made me think one thing and the plot was completely different. This book is a psychological thriller, however, but not the kind I usually gravitate toward. The novel is Shakespearean (Macbeth if I had to pick one) in its wit, drama, and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this e-arc.*

Birnam Wood
By Eleanor Catton

This book is a tough read. It deals with a group of young people with liberal ideologies who form Birnam Wood, a non-profit organization, to help others and to bring down the billionaire capitalists and make the world a better place. Into the mix comes Robert Lemoine, one of the aforementioned billionaires who is up to no good when he gets involved with the group. And then there are Lord Owen Darvish and his wife, Jill, - old-fashioned conservatives who manage to be right in the middle of the plot line because they own the property which is the cause of all the problems, much to their detriment.

The tale is dark and left me feeling rather hopeless by the end. It is a well written story, but will not leave you feeling good about the state of the world.

I found the characters to be compellingly drawn out in the beginning, especially Lemoine (with his sociopathic tendencies) and Mira. The prose and description of New Zealand were also lovely. What became burdensome in the middle were the self-righteous, long tirades that Tony—and to a lesser extent Shelley—went on. I understand that this was intentional but wow did it make it hard for me to like them. Tony was too busy demonizing capitalism, pouting about being underestimated, and obsessing over Mira. Shelley could barely form a sentence without bringing up how manipulative Mira was. It was exhausting.

On a larger scale, I understood that the book is trying to tease out the selfishness that exists on both sides of Birnam Wood's DIY, collectivist ethos and Lemoine's purely money-driven exploitation of public land. I just think the political sparring was too heavy handed in relation to the plot line. Maybe less a thriller and more a thesis in disguise?

eleanor catton can WRITE. arty in the best way, gorgeously rendered, and deeply insightful. tight as hell, probably will end up being divisive, but i loved it.

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)

This book was worth the wait. It is very ambitious and clever but never feels preachy or like it is talking down to you, and I think Catton wrestles with hot button topics like environmentalism and social media in a really interesting way. She is a talented writer, but her real gift is for description - I highlighted several lines in my review copy just because they stopped me cold. The ending totally reframed my perception of the book, in a way that I think is really rare and extremely difficult to pull off. I will read anything she writes.

I picked this up on a whim, thinking I wouldn't love it after looking at Goodreads. While some of the complaints on Goodreads are valid, I absolutely loved Birnam Wood. This is a very very literary mystery. Do not pick this up looking for a heart pounding thriller. In short, this is the story of a guerilla gardening group and the billionaire they become intertwined with.

The beginning of this book is a slow burn. There is a lot of character set up and a lot of philosophizing going on. Keep reading as it all comes together and makes every word worth it. Birnam Wood, the name of the book and the gardening group, is obviously a reference to Macbeth. This entire story felt very Shakepearean- the wit, the cat and mouse, the drama, the ENDING. I enjoyed the nods to the tropes Shakespeare built out for us.

I just loved this. It was intricately and expertly plotted, the social commentary was on point, and it had me frantically turning pages. I have not read a single thing like it. I find the more I love a book, the less I can articulate about it, and that is what I'm facing here.

Set in New Zealand - about a group Birnam Wood who seizes an opportunity to occupy an abandoned farm - but first a billionaire wants it - it’s a slow burn of a gripping thriller - weird unique characyers