Birnham Wood

 By: Eleanor Catton

Location: FIC CAT

Genre: Aotearoa, Fiction, Thriller

"Part social satire, part literary fiction, part thriller, Birnam Wood sees the return of the Booker Prize-winning author, Eleanor Catton, with a compulsively readable and compelling story about activism, the climate crisis, and deception. I flew through this book; I couldn't put it down. I wanted not only to find out what happened but also enjoyed the many different conversations characters had about big themes like purpose, activism, social responsibility, economics, privilege, etc. She writes these diatribes so well they may go on for pages but you can't stop reading. You will flip who you are siding with from section to section. And it all ends with a memorable ending that will definitely create lots of discussion" Maxwell- Goodreads.

A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its wit, drama, and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.

Birnam Wood is on the move . . .

Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice: on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. Natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned.

But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Robert Lemoine, the enigmatic American billionaire, has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker--or so he tells Mira when he catches her on the property. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?