One of Heatmap’s Climate Books to Read in 2025

One of Apple Books most anticipated spring non-fiction titles

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“Like the trees that it centers, this wonder of a book soars, oxygenates, roots, connects, and awes. It’s a paean to all things arboreal, a memoir about loss and community, and a call to engage in acts of caretaking for our trees and for each other. To do any one of these things well would have made for a good book; to do them all beautifully is a true gift.”

—Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of I Contain Multitudes and Immense Worlds

“Powerful and moving, Take to the Trees will resonate with anyone looking for ways to live with optimism and courage through our current era. Just as Marguerite Holloway literally climbs into trees and finds herself, so too does the book explore the connections between trees and the branches of our lives—from the visible canopy to the substantive roots.”

—Alexandra Horowitz, author of Inside of a Dog and The Year of the Puppy

“Take to the Trees invites us to contemplate pushing past our own limits up into the treetops, as well as respecting the guidance of trees. I learned much from this wise book, and can only hope that many readers follow this writer up into the highest branches, to gain an understanding of where we are planted on this earth. Holloway’s insights are urgent and necessary.”

—Sarah Ruhl, MacArthur fellow, playwright, and author of Smile

“In her powerful and affecting book, Marguerite Holloway makes a case for how caretaking trees is really caretaking ourselves, and each other.”

—Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix

“Take to the Trees is as lyrical and energetic a book as its title would suggest. In this hybrid of participatory journalism, environmental essay, and family memoir, Marguerite Holloway moves with effortless grace among her literary genres, and in so doing teaches us not only the facts but also the poetry of the natural world. One can’t finish this wonderful book without seeing the nonhuman world with new eyes.”

—Darcy Frey, author of The Last Shot

      PHOTO BY ALEX HODOR-LEE

Marguerite Holloway
has written about the environment and science for publications including the New York Times, The New Yorker, Audubon, Wired 
and Scientific American, where she was a long-time writer and editor. She is a professor and the Director of Science and Environmental Journalism at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.
She lives in New York City.

“In an Increasingly Noisy Arctic, Will Narwhals Fall Silent?” 
The New Yorker, August 31, 2021

“When There’s No Heat: ‘You Need Wood, You Get Wood” 
New York Times, 2021

“New England’s Forests are Sick. They Need More Tree Doctors” 
New York Times, 2020

“As Phoenix Heats Up, the Night Comes Alive” 
New York Times, 2019

“Your Children’s Yellowstone Will be Radically Different” 
New York Times, 2018

“A Rat Named Nemesis” 
The New Yorker, 2018

“Spying on Whales to Save Them”
The New Yorker, 2018