taut fast paced thriller with incredible psychological insights - well paced, tightly constructed. a genius at work

This eco-thriller set in New Zealand’s South Island keeps ratcheting up the tension and culminating in a completely unexpected explosive ending. It’s such a worthy next novel after Catton’s brilliant first novel, The Luminaries, won the Booker Prize (she is the youngest author ever to have won) and you have to add this to your reading list as well!

This book starts slow, following a committed group of gardening activists who want to increase the use of the land for growing crops to feed the needy. To do so, they set up gardens in donated spaces, but they also frequently resort to guerilla tactics: secretly planting on private or public land without permission and stealing the gardening items they need. They’ve named themselves Birnan Wood, and frequently find themselves arguing among themselves about how to stay afloat financially and revisiting their core vision. Among them, there’s Mira the idealistic and perhaps unrealistic founder, Shelley her disillusioned second in command and roommate, and jaded Tony an earlier member who’s returned from abroad casting harsh critiques that the group has lost their way.

Mira heads out to scout a potential planting spot near Korowai National Park, where a recent landslide has shut the town down. While checking out a large farm that prior to the landslide had been slated for housing subdivisions, Mira stumbles upon American CEO-billionaire Robert who’s also scouting the property which he says he has bought for his doomsday survival bunker in the case of climate collapse. Charming Robert offers to give a grant of $100,000 to Birnam Wood if they set up a farming test pilot on the farm. Unbeknownst to Mira, the sale has not actually been completed.

With the evocative narrative continually shifting between the perspective main characters, tensions mount to edge-of-your-seat as underlying motives get uncovered, romantic sparks fly and lives become endangered.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux & NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

In some ways, this book is the spiritual successor to Catton's previous novel, The Luminaries — nefarious businessmen, money to be made off elements in the ground, and the consequences of entangling yourself with the sort of person who sees you as a means to an end. However, Birnam Wood is definitely not the same book, moving us to the modern day fictional area of Thorndike, New Zealand. There are young idealists, gardeners who just want to save the world a little a time, and the willful ignorance of the always upwardly-grasping rich (and the ultra-rich taking advantage of them all). Everyone is compromised in their own way, despite their posturing and efforts to appear otherwise. You definitely won't like everyone here, but that's not the point.

If I had any complaints, the semi-abrupt ending left me with a few questions, but I also see what Catton was doing with it. When pressed against the wall, when you only have what is in front of you to work with, all your speeches and myth-making no longer matter. With the time remaining, what are you able to DO?

Sadly this was a DNF for me. I really pushed, got through 10% and had zero interest. It's descriptive to a bad fault. A paragraph is over a page long and 16 pages in I read about Mina and Shelley meeting on the day Shelley's parents separated twice. There was no dialog between characters for over 20 pages, just descriptive narration. I tried, but this is just too boring. Especially when it's only 3 chapters and each chapter is close to 100 pages..

This is a very well written book with a great premise, yet it wasn't quite the book for me.
At times I found myself very caught up in the prose , rereading sentences that were so packed with meaning.
The book is about a group called Birnam Wood - an environmentalist group dedicated to producing organic produce on unused plots of land. Mira, Shelley and Tony are the main characters the reader follows from the group. They come upon a bit of land ideal for their work and enter Robert Lemoine (a very wealthy developer) and Owen and Jill Darvish who own the land. Tony breaks from the group and becomes a lone journalist trying to follow the story of what is going on with Lemoine and the area which has recently suffered a natural disaster.
The characters were not likeable to me at all. The story pacing was initially very slow and then almost rocketed to a very bizarre ending.
I believe the author was making a very important point about capitalism and how business is done in the world. All though I very much agree with her perspective at times it felt like preaching from a soapbox.
Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC in exchange for a honest review.

I enjoyed Eleanor Catton's psychological eco-thriller about a guerilla gardening collective. It took some time for the plot to get moving, but I didn't mind because I particularly liked the interiority of Catton's writing. The way she explored each character's personality, thoughts, and relationships was fascinating and reminded me of books by Jeffrey Eugenides, Lauren Groff, and Sally Rooney (to name a few authors).

Birnam Wood was thought-provoking and the last two thirds of the novel moved quickly. Despite finding the characters extremely interesting, I wish I had felt more invested in them. I also was not a fan of the ending. I don't think I will be able to fully process this book until I've had a chance to discuss it with other readers, so I'll be encouraging my friends to read this, if only for my own selfish aims! But in all seriousness, I think this would be a great pick for a book club.

Thank you to FSG and NetGalley for the e-ARC!

For a book with so much potential for intrigue due to all the deception, it’s incredibly dry.

The characters are self invoked, which isn’t unrealistic, but there isn’t really anyone to cheer for or care about.

It feels like just a lot of internal monologues or conversations that barely move the story along.

I was excited to read Catton's new novel even if the setup -- a psychological thriller about a New Zealand guerrilla gardening group teaming up with an American billionaire to farm a piece of land in a sparsely populated region -- did not exactly pique my interest. But after a slow start, I was all in. As in The Luminaries, mining, greed & good intentions are explored, but with a more contemporary setting. There are different players and ideologies at work that come together and clash over a piece of land. These ideologies and actions are the same ones we see playing out around us, as billionaire have more power than governments, and leftist movements get derailed by in-fighting and mismanagement. Everyone is flawed in some way, and driven by ambition, which felt appropriately Shakespearean for a novel with a MacBeth reference as a title. The ending is Shakespearean, too. I was surprised by how gripping I found it. Less magical and epic than The Luminaries, it was still a pretty darn good read. Thanks to #netgalley for the ARC!

This was not what I was expecting. I thought the author was more likely to' deliver something more literary than thriller, more Irish than Antipodean, if that word applies to NZ.
Nevertheless, this is a big, impressive, exciting, unpredictable and tireless work of environmental consideration wrapped inside an easily consumable and unhackneyed assembly of character relationships. Catton appears here more of a traditionalist in terms of storytelling than I had expected. But she does it very well. And it should make a great if depressing film.
This is pacy, up-to-the-minute stuff that will appeal widely. Good for her.

"The Booker Prize–winning author of The Luminaries brings us Birnam Wood, a gripping thriller of high drama and kaleidoscopic insight into what drives us to survive.

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, an 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?

A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both influences, fascinated by what makes us who we are. A brilliantly constructed study of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is a mesmerizing, unflinching consideration of the human impulse to ensure our own survival."

After I read The Luminaries I will never not read an Eleanor Catton book.

Let me say right up front that I probably wouldn't have finished Birnam Wood but for this - I loved The Luminaries so much that I read it twice and listened to the audiobook and would be happy to read it again.

Environmental fiction based around an extreme gardening organization, Birnam Wood, a group that grows food on unused land, which occasionally involves trespassing. Mira Bunting is Birnam Wood’s founder. When Mira meets a billionaire who says he is purchasing a tract of land near a recent landslide, it leads to a deal that appears to be mutually beneficial, though at least one member feels it is against their principles. Other major players include Tony, an aspiring journalist who has not been active in Birnam Wood recently, Shelley, the person who holds Birnam Wood together with her accounting and planning skills, and Owen and Jill Darvish, owners of the land being sold to the billionaire.

This book has everything – fabulous believable characters, socially relevant subject matter, a creative and engrossing storyline, and top-rate writing. The environmental theme is particularly well done. The billionaire wants to build a doomsday bunker. He employs the latest technology, including drone surveillance. I would call it a “literary thriller” in that it starts with a detailed introduction of characters, complete with a deep dive into their interior thoughts, and slowly builds to include more action and faster pacing, ultimately reaching a whirlwind climax.

I enjoyed this book almost all the way through; however, much of my appreciation for a book relies on the ending. While I understand the point, I did not care for it. I would love to discuss it with others. I anticipate there will be a wide variety of reactions.

4.5

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton is one of those rare books that is fast-paced and thought provoking, while also having well-developed characters and a unique plot. It raises more questions than it answers, and the reader will be okay with that. This is sure to be one of the most discussed book of the year and is a solid gold book club pick. Highly recommended.

The setting: Mira Bunting founds a guerrilla gardening collective--Birnam Wood. Sustaining it is difficult. She "... 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?"

The blurb describes the book as a "gripping psychological thriller"--I SAY NOT. Yes there are intentions, actions, consequences, maybe a bit Shakespearean [Macbeth quote], but, I didn't really care/enough. And yes, I did want to find out what would happen once I FINALLY got involved. Plodding along--which I did for about two-thirds of the book, until I felt a shift and it picked up. But--that's a long time and this is not a short, easy read. Further, none of the characters are particularly likeable--Mira, Shelley [the other femaie protagonist/also a member of Birnam Wood], Lemoine, or Tony--an egotistical journalist.

New words: tilth, friable [both gardening terms] and cyan.

Full disclaimer: I do not care for long, run-on sentences, and this book is chock full of them! I find them annoying and somewhat difficult, and in this case, it added to the not getting into the book/finding a rhythm.

And--no spoiler from me--I didn't care for the ending.

3.5 [but only because it of the last third of the novel and it's originality], but NOT ROUNDING UP.

A timely and relevant story of progressive guerilla gardeners verus pretty much everyone but in Birnam Wood, specifically American Billionaire, Robert Lemoine. Where I found the premise fascinating, the first two-thirds of the books were written with copious amounts of long run-on sentences (whole pages) that often felt more like a lecture than a Novel.
Birnam Wood gets its name from a relationship with William Shakespeare's Macbeth where both being a forest. Macbeth's downfall was entangled with the forest and this foreshadows what is to come in Birnam Wood.
If you hang in there, it gets really good during the third act. How I want to make a comment on the ending but don't want to ruin for those that stick with it. What is worth noting, however, is no one is as pure as their principles, unless you look at our billionaire-in-residence. He knows exactly who and what he is. I can appreciate the author's fair play in motivation of characters.

Thank you to the publisher for granting my request for an early copy. All opinions are my own

This was tough book to.get through. The intro is 120 pages long and goes on and on and on. I almost did not finish it. The ending is good but getting to it really is a chore.

A group of slightly militant gardeners discovers a plot of land left unattended following a major landslide. The group leader scouts the area and is dismayed and alarmed to discover someone else is already there. They strike a bargain and each begin working toward their own ends. But what are the stranger's ends? Slow-moving, but serviceable.

A quick read with a twist. Entertaining but a little heavy handed on the character development and ending.

The idea of a guerilla gardening group so intrigued me, as did the description of this novel as an eco-thriller. I had tried to read Eleanor Catton’s prize-winning “The Luminaries” years ago but gave up because of meandering prose and exceptionally long winded sentences. I remember reviews that praised that novel and others that declared it “dense.” Again, the first quarter of “Birnam Wood,” although blessed with magical and lyrical descriptions of New Zealand, is just slow…. The plot did get more interesting about 150 pages in, but by then my mind was meandering, remembering why I could not finish “The Luminaries.” I did try the trick of reading the last chapter to see if I really wanted to know how everything led to the end, but, I’m afraid, I was more convinced to end my latest Eleanor Catton adventure there. Sorry, but this again was just not my style. 3 stars. I’ll be interested if future reviewers can convince to re-read this.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO Blue ones and blackened eyes, but no green ones.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO Ms. Catton has based her descriptions on real national parks in New Zealand — they are inviting and captivating.

I really love Catton's writing and was engaged from the beginning. *SPOILER* Not what I would recommend to anyone in a fragile mental state, though - I felt like so many of the details were set forth for the future investigators who would one day try to piece together what happened at Thorndike.