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Birnam Wood: A Novel
Eleanor Catton
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INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER. A Best Book of the Year (So Far) at The New Yorker, The BBC, Vulture, CrimeReads. A Barack Obama Summer Reading Pick.
“[A] savagely satirical thriller.” —People.
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 . . . A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last.
But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place: he has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. He’s intrigued by Mira, and by Birnam Wood; although they’re poles apart politically, it seems Lemoine and the group might have enemies in common. But can Birnam trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another?
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.
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Posts about this title from sunny thoughts
sunny thoughts\ \ Sunny\ \ • Dec 9 2023
very belatedly reacting to the Goodreads Choice Award nominations & winners of 2023
back from my hiatus! To comment and bitch about the people's reading taste of course.
🍉🕊️🫒 donation info: Please DO NOT mention PaIestine in your donation. VENMO: @three-dee or @Lina-Shahid PAYPAL: @deesturbance ZELLE: 720-240-1108
last year's vid: https://youtu.be/VBSOGbDJloM?si=XSDL\_LNyMF2sMoSf
Find me: Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/asunnybooknook (I don't update my Storygraph profile, sorry!! only upload my goodreads data there once a year for data purposes :( too hard to keep up with 2 tracking apps and I'm more familiar with Goodreads at this point) Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sunnyboxhouse My Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sunnyinstlouis/ Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/asunnybooknook Business contact - asunnybooknook @ gmail dot com
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29 books
Posts about this book from across Bindery
Sunny's Book Truck\ \ CJ\ \ • Jul 29 2025
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\ \ After finishing reading Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, I had a book hangover. Everything I picked up faltered in comparison. This novel published in 1980 has become a modern classic for god reason! We follow two young girls, entrusted in their strange aunts care after the death of their parents in grandmother. Set in a creaky old house in the fictional northwest town of Fingerbone, we watch the girls come of age and try to come to terms with their transient aunt and their suffocating small town. For fans of: being able to see your breath in the cold air, Toni Morrison, and french braids.\ \ \ \ Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton follows a guerrilla gardening group and their opponents as they navigate their way through the New Zealand countryside, trying to turn an abandoned farm into their biggest project yet. Part psychological thriller, part in depth character analysis of the worst people imaginable, Catton’s control of the narrative and its many inhabitants was endlessly impressive. The prose was immaculate and giving Franzen, tbh. Totally engrossing without the pulpy hangover of a thriller done badly. I loved it! For fans of: age gap relationships, Crossroads , and doomsday cults.\ \ \ \ Open Throat by Henry Hoke is narrated by a lonely mountain lion and is somehow able to poignantly capture something about queerness and the failure of language. The novel is set in contemporary LA and seamlessly interweaves themes of displacement and the myth of the natural. Reckless and precise, Open Throat is a love letter to all creatures who can’t be tamed. For fans of: heatwave mirages, crawling on all fours, saliva.](https://sunnysbooktruck.binderybooks.com/item/B5gnTZCV3oRtFDFI2JKv/)
Sisters! Cults! Lions!
3 books
sunny thoughts\ \ Sunny\ \ • Dec 9 2023
very belatedly reacting to the Goodreads Choice Award nominations & winners of 2023
back from my hiatus! To comment and bitch about the people's reading taste of course.
🍉🕊️🫒 donation info: Please DO NOT mention PaIestine in your donation. VENMO: @three-dee or @Lina-Shahid PAYPAL: @deesturbance ZELLE: 720-240-1108
last year's vid: https://youtu.be/VBSOGbDJloM?si=XSDL\_LNyMF2sMoSf
29 books
WPD Books\ \ William\ \ • Jun 27 2023
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These are the 3 Best Books I’ve read so far this year (excluding rereads): - Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (novel) - This Isn’t Going to End Well by Daniel Wallace (memoir) - The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin (reflections and assertions) #bookstagram #bookrecommendations
5 books
WPD Books\ \ William\ \ • Apr 29 2023
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2023 Bookshelf (and Office) Tour
A brief tour of my bookshelves and office. I’m working on rounding out my collection and am already looking forward to making the 2024 edition of this video.
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All my links are here: https://linktr.ee/williamdozier
12 books
WPD Books\ \ William\ \ • Apr 5 2023
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Most fun read of the year for me so far by far. It’s a literary thriller. It’s modern. Itms set in new zealand. There’s an American billionaire involved. The writing is brilliant. Go get a copy. It’s in bookstores everywhere #booktok #bookrecommendations #eleanorcatton #birnamwood #fsg #literarythriller
1 book
WPD Books\ \ William\ \ • Mar 15 2023
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#ad I wear this weighted hoodie by Thera after work to help me decompress and focus on reading fiction. I carry a TON of tension in my shoulders, which goes away almost instantly when I put this thing on. If you struggle to relax enough to enjoy your nightly reading sessions, I recommend giving one of Thera’s hoodies or blankets a try. Use code DOZIER to get 10% off your order.
1 book