Suzanne Simard Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Suzanne Simard is an American published author, scientist, and a pioneer when it comes to the frontier of plant communication and intelligence.

She has been praised for being a scientist who is able to convey complex and technical ideas in a way that is profound and dazzling. Her work has even had an impact on the movie world, as it has influenced film makers and their work (one instance would be the Tree of Souls featured in Avatar by James Cameron).

She is a professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia. Readers may also know her for her popular book, Finding the Mother Tree.

Suzanne is recognized for her work on how trees are able to interact and communicate using below-ground fungal networks. This led to the realization that forests have Mother Trees, or hub trees, which are large and highly interconnected trees that play a crucial role in a forest’s flow of information and resources.

The current research that she is doing looks into how these complex relationships assist with forest resiliency, adaptability, and recovery. She also looks into the implications for how they can manage and heal forests from human impacts, like climate change.

She has published over two hundred peer-reviewed articles and has presented at a variety of conferences all around the world. She has also talked about her work to audience members all over the world through documentaries, interviews, and her TEDTalk, ‘How trees talk to one another’. Suzanne Simard’s TED talks have been looked at by over ten million people all over the world. Readers can find them online if they are so inclined.

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest is a 2021 book by Suzanne Simard. If you enjoy a good nonfiction book and really like to learn about new things and you also appreciate nature, this is the perfect book for you.

This was a New York Times bestseller and is one of those books that becomes so interesting that you won’t want to put it down and may even find yourself recommending it to friends. Suzanne is a leading forest ecologist whose work has changed how people see not only trees and living things but their connections to each other and other living things in the forest in this journey of discovery.

Author Robin Wall Kimmerer enjoyed this book, saying that it ‘reminds us that the world is a web of stories, connecting us to one another’. If you’ve ever seen one of her TEDTalks, you know what to expect from Suzanne Simard, a famed pioneer when it comes to exploring plant communication and intelligence.

Simard pulls the reader into a world that not many think about– the world of the trees– and talks about some of the most important truths about these beings. Trees are not just a resource from which to obtain wood, timber, or pulp, but part of a complex circle of life that is interdependent.

Forests are also far from being inanimate and are cooperative and social creatures that connect through underground networks, where they communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities and share lives that are actually much more communal than the singular existence that they were thought to have.

Simard is able to talk about the history of trees, who have lived by each others’ sides for hundreds of years. She talks about how they have evolved, how they learn and even adapt behavior, how they are able to recognize their neighbors, and how they are able to compete and cooperate with each other and even share some characteristics that have been attributed to human intelligence.

She also talks about how at the center of all of this are the Mother Trees. These are powerful and mysterious forces that are able to connect as well as sustain the others that are around them. In between, Simard talks about her own life, where she grew up in the logging world of the rain forests of British Columbia.

It was during this time that she came to love and respect trees. She writes about her own journey and scientific quest and how understanding trees better can lead to a better understanding about who we are as well as the place that we occupy in the world. Read Finding The Mother Tree to follow along with every word.

When the Forest Breathes: Renewal and Resilience in the Natural World is a 2026 book by Suzanne Simard. This is a New York Times bestseller that aims to create a picture of how saving our forests could look that is based on the cycles of renewal in nature. Author Zoë Schlanger says that this is a ‘masterclass on the inner workings of forests’ and is ‘science as an act of love for the world’.

The author grew up in a family of loggers who had a deep commitment to sensible forest stewardship. Now she has grown up to be an ecologists and has seen timber companies leave forests at a higher risk for experiencing such negative consequences as water crises, wildfires, and plant and animal extinction. However, she has decided to make the most of the situation and has conducted research that could create a new path.

She reveals that the forest is a symphony of finely-honed regeneration cycles that are the key to protecting it. She works with local indigenous communities and takes a closer look at how human interventions threaten new growth and longevity. She puts forth the argument that honoring the tools that trees have honed for sharing their inter-generational wisdom can help to protect these sacred spaces in the decades to come.

Simard takes into consideration how older living things facilitate conditions for new growth to happen and faces similar rhythms of loss and regeneration herself as she sees her daughters become adults and she spends her last days with her mother. Check out When the Forest Breathes for an inspiring look at all the natural world can teach us about community, resilience, and adaptability.