3:31 amazing and absorbing story begins with a series of substories about trees and how they affect the environment. The first episode is titled, “Nicholas Hoel.” Powers writes, “Now is the time of chestnuts. // People are hurling stones at the giant trunks. The nuts fall all around them in a divine hail. It happens in countless places this Sunday, from Georgia to Main. Up in Concord, Thoreau takes part. He feels he is casting rocks at a sentient being, with a duller sense than his own, yet still a blood relation. Old trees are our parents, and our parents, and our parents’ parents, perchance. If you would learn the secrets of Nature, you must practice more humanity…” (5). This is a splendid beginning for this magnificent novel.