Reception
In the Canadian market, the hardcover edition peaked at number three in the MacLean's and the National Post's non-fiction best seller lists. The magazine Science & Spirit published an excerpt in the January–February 2005 edition. It was nominated for the 2004 Canadian Science Writers' Association's Science in Society Journalism Award for 'General Audience Book', the 2005 B.C. Booksellers' Choice Award and the 2006 Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries' Annual Litereature Award for best 'General Interest' book. The French translation was nominated for the 2006 Governor General's Awards for best English to French translation.
The premise of a biography for a tree was well received. The writing was called engaging, lyrical, and compelling. Robert Wiersema wrote, "Tree is science writing at its finest. It's sweeping but focused, keenly aware of both the minutiae and the big picture. ... Although some of the concepts are complex, the writing is always accessible ... Scientific matters are explained in layman's terms, and the text never bogs down or bottlenecks." However, some reviewers found the language too technical. In the Montreal Gazette, Bronwyn Chester wrote that the scientific language "dilut our feeling and concern for this tree through too much information". Robert Bateman's black and white illustrations, while skilled, were said to add little to the narrative.
Read more about this topic: Tree: A Life Story
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)