I read the nonfiction Lab Girl by Hope Jahren and loved it. Information about and love and respect for trees shine throughout the book. I actually named a tree in my backyard Bill at Jahren’s suggestion. I had just planted it so it seemed a good idea at the time. However, I’m not sure the name fits the tree, so can only hope I haven’t offended it. 
Anyway, I highly recommend the book, even if you’re not normally a nonfiction reader.
And I actually have an emoji!
@Mary13 I was horrified about the ashes! My husband read the book at the same time and laughed heartily. I liked that it was the Jack Russell terrier that Beth always stopped to visit on her way to the train. At least her ashes ended up somewhere she enjoyed spending time. I was surprised Harry wasn’t more upset when he spilled Beth’s ashes. I guess he was just too distraught overall that losing her ashes was small compared to losing her.
FYI, my husband enjoyed the book. He agreed that it was a good time for an easy read. The only thing he didn’t like very much was the end where Wolf stole the dog.
I think the scene with Beth’s ashes was supposed to make us feel uncomfortable, show Harry’s state of utter despair and helplessness.
The tree theme was interesting. I was confused about Harry ALWAYS being in the office. You think there would have been some opportunity for him to be out in the field seeing the trees in person.
I think Harry deliberately chose and/or accepted tasks that would keep him in the office almost 24/7, as a way of hiding from the world – and the trees. The forest would make him feel something other than misery, and he wasn’t ready to move out of the pure grief stage.
My son and his wife just bought a house and asked City Hall for a tree. A sapling is provided for free, but without the homeowner having a say in the species. The choice is up to the City Forester, depending upon what’s appropriate in terms of locale and/or what they have available. Lots of discussion about what they might receive – which made it clear that yes, we really do care about our trees!
This week, the City planted a Bur Oak next to their house and everybody’s happy. I shall now tell my son and daughter-in-law that they should name it.
Here’s a nice link:
Just the tree Hope Jahren would choose: https://slate.com/technology/2016/04/earth-day-is-the-perfect-time-to-plant-a-tree-heres-how.html
How about an oak? [...] For my money, I’ll take the bur oak, the slowest-growing but the strongest of all; even its acorns are heavily armored, ready to do battle with the uninviting soil.
@ignatius, I just shared that bur oak quote with my son and daughter-in-law, and they loved it. 
Also, thank you thank you for mentioning Lab Girl, which I never heard of. I now have a Christmas gift for my biologist tree-hugging daughter.
When we threw my Mom’s ashes in the same brook in Vermont where my Dad’s had gone a few years earlier, I liked to imagine the ashes getting together somewhere downstream. Except that my brother’s poodle bounded after the ashes and ended up with a good many on his coat. We all got pretty silly about it. Ghoulish senses of humor.
Gold-tested friendships:
Cliff and Hoop. But it really wasn’t much of a test, was it? They agreed immediately on what to do with the gold. I guess my point is that that kind of decision would have taxed many ordinary friendships, but they had an extraordinary one.
Francine and Ginger. Ah, here temptation crept out from the depths, but Francine resisted and left her brownies on top of the burlap bag. It was nice to see in the end that Ginger was apparently sharing her windfall.
Harry / Amanda / Cliff. Harry’s gold giveaway circles back home and ends up on Amanda’s doorstep. She is furious with Harry, but once she realizes that he did not orchestrate the drop, she is able to reflect on Cliff and their friendship (with benefits) and move toward gently cracking open the door again to that friendship (without benefits 
).
Let’s not forget our other CC discussion with gold “at the heart of the story”: Spinning Silver
First, thanks to @ignatius for so aptly describing how a young child grieves immense loss, explaining oriana’s journey into a fantasy world, and her intensity. You’ve made her the most believable character to me now , still extremely precocious, but very realistic.
@mary13 thanks for the links to interesting article, trees talking, and especially the link to the different kinds of trees, could have used that while reading this book?
So, your son’s newly planted tree, shall be known as the “O&O burr Oak” by me.
Olive ( you are a family of book lovers. With a librarian or two around ) and
Oriana, ( light and gold ) may it become mighty, majestic oak, a good omen for all.
@ignatius I love that you named your tree Bill,
You are all making me feel guilty about the 8 trees we had cut down this fall, but there are plenty left on the property, none with names, yet.
@coloradomom, when the ashes flew around, I also, thought it reflected Harry’s despondent state of mind but there was also an undercurrent of Cohen’s delicate humorous touch. So I guess it depends on the reader, @Caraid husband laughed, as did @mathmom because they had the exact thing happen, what are the odds ?
Regarding this story’s theme of gold and how it differs from other stories, I assume Harry’s Trees will someday become a movie, and of course, Cohen will be the screenwriter— I, also, assume Harry’s Trees themes include on all things that “ matter to Cohen in life” family, love, work, play, community. ( interesting the novel skirts away religion and God)
From this article, Cohen reflects on the stressful time rewriting the script for Steven Speibergs movie, Minority report, for two years that script was sourced around unsuccessfully, until Cohen and Frank, eventually wrote the award winning script. Here he mentions how grounded he was, able to handle the enormous project.
“ If Dick virtually invented the humanistic-but-paranoid parable now de rigueur in science fiction, Cohen is a little more grounded. “I didn’t freak out,” he says of his Spielberg meeting, "Because I was a nurse for many years, and I had people die and blood and weirdness and big situations, so I know what matters in life."
In Harry’s Trees, the decisions to “share “ not “hoard” the “Gold”, “Riches” lottery winnings” , gave almost everyone a way to resolve their damaged psyches, and find happiness.
Oriana, found peace, acceptance, love - family and friendship,
Harry- atoned for his guilt about Beth, and found family and Love, and “play” as he climbed the trees.
Cliff and Hoop used it in the right way to make Amends, with Amanda, and with a nod and a wink at the bar, we know all is well.
( as @mary13 stated “friends “ without -benefits -going -forward”made me laugh)
And, Ronnie resolved regret and guilt, and poor self esteem.
Olive, found a renewed purpose in life, work
Amanda, became unstuck and found romantic love again.
I will admit, my greedy self wanted Amanda, to say, “hey guys I could really use a bit of that stash to get me out of hot water with the bankers”, being the realist she was, but, ok, this is a fairy tale, too. But, I really wanted Amanda to say it.
Unrelated to the question about “gold” I’m confused about a particular scene.
On Page 423, Harry encounters, Olive late at night after she received the gold. It’s a very atmospheric setting, Olive on the wall, veiled in smoke, being “very witchy” in the moonlight.
**I’ve been out here, pondering,” Olive said. “This old wall- very good for pondering. I believe you stood right here, not so long ago and pondered a thing or two”.
…”And , on that day,” Olive continued, “ you found a book”
“Left by a witch”
Olive laughed.
“ Left by Oriana . Oh, I might have had something to do with it. In the sense that I’m a librarian, and she’s a very compelling reader**
Had she been told about Harry’s Suicide attempt? Is she implying she “magically “ made it all happen?
3. Amanda is a powerhouse, dynamic and forceful. And yet she ultimately falls for Harry, who is not. Why?
I keep coming back to this question, so I’ll take a shot. My knee-jerk reaction when I read this question was to disagree with the assumption the Harry was not a powerhouse, dynamic, and forceful. His life prior to his time in the forest may have been meek, but that is not who he was when Amanda fell for him. He evolved and found himself (and his trees) in Oriana’s forsest. He was quirky, kind, generous, and mysterious. Plus, from the start Amanda seemed to find herself attratced to him, something which doesn’t always have resonable explanations.
I feel like Amanda started falling for Harry when she understood how he chose which trees to climb, building from one day to the next, and why.
She realized that while physically he was no Dean, Harry wasn’t the failed at life, tired bureaucrat he had appeared to be in the beginning.
Harry has unplumbed depths to him.
I thought that the whole tree-climbing section was explained so well through Amanda.
True – and sort of surprising for a book that has such spiritual undertones. The novel opens with Beth’s Quaker Memorial Service, which is more awkward than comforting, and Harry walks out. A comment on organized religion vs. individual and unique spiritual journeys?
I think this is another one of those passages that you can interpret how you like, depending on whether you’re a romantic or a realist. As noted above in the BookPage article:
“There’s not a single thing in there that can’t happen,” Cohen observes. “The world is imbued with a little magic. But I made darn sure that there were real-world explanations for what seem like magical events.”
@jerseysouthmomchess, that article from the Jewish Journal was very interesting. “Minority Report” couldn’t be more different from Harry’s Trees. I realize “Report” is Philip K. Dick’s work and Cohen was transferring it to screen — still, the sci-fi noir subject matter shows Cohen’s wide range of interests (not to mention his wide range of experience — “applying wriggling medicinal leeches to a patient’s severed-but-reattached fingers” 
).
The fact that Cohen’s early success was as a screenplay writer explains why Harry’s Trees struck me right away as script material.
Dean had strength; Harry had agility. Both men were outside the norm in terms of their physical prowess.
Although it harkens back to childhood games, tree-climbing can be serious business – difficult and dangerous.
I wonder if Jon Cohen was influenced by Roald Dahl’s The Minpins? I just found a great short review (of a tree-climber James Aldred’s memoir) that has Harry’s Trees written all over it:
The final line of The Minpins captures the meaning of climbing trees, which is about trying to access a higher canopy of existence: “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
!!
The article goes on:
For Dahl, a tree is a pathway, a sort of ladder leading away from the earth and into the sky. Those who climb trees are often lonely, or in search of a vantage point that separates them from everybody else. But there is an inevitable corollary to this solitary quest, a lesson that my tree-climbing habit taught me over and over again: It’s harder to go down than up.
Okay, I just went searching…and yes, Roald Dahl is one of Cohen’s influences:
Who are your favorite writers?
I read widely in many different genre and my favorites keep changing. In the past few months, I’ve read terrific fiction by William Boyd, Julia Alvarez, Alice Munro, Graham Greene, and Kem Nunn. Other novelists I like: Richard Ford, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, V.S. Naipaul, Roald Dahl, Robert Stone, and Vladmir Nabokov.
I too am on the fence about this. It makes sense that a logical explanation can be made based on the location of the wall, the broken tree, the candy wrapper story that was given as explanation for Harry’s fall.
But the atmospheric description of the scene made me think that she was blessed with a touch of magic.
I think that is a very interesting point. Also, the success of the book’s message lies in that. Rather than talking about religion overtly Cohen has given us a spiritual, mystical, offering — an acknowledgment that everyone’s religious journey is individual and not necessarily an organized, standard one.
Random thoughts:
Childhood grief - Both Harry and Wolf lose their father and take his loss differently. Harry pulls inward and upward, retreating into his tree. He reacts the same with faced with loss as an adult. Wolf reacts with anger and, because of his size, his bullying meets with reactions that encourage it. He remains stuck in that loop as an adult. Of course we’ve already noted Oriana. I bet as an adult, if faced with loss, she’ll retreat into books once again - not the belief in magic per se but the magic of reading.
And speaking of gold: Alexander Grum - Olive’s love - gives her up for the “gold” reflected in a bank ledger. He regrets it. In sending her the story of his regret, he means well - a sort of acknowledgment of his mistake and an apology. I don’t think he means to hurt her but he does. She feels anger more than anything else because it makes both their lives seem a waste. I’m glad her library was saved at the end.
And on selflessness: We’ve noted Harry and Oriana and Amanda and Cliff and Hoop - even Francine. Yet no one mentioned Ronnie who delivers two million dollars without filching one gold coin. Even Olive will never know he acted as her Santa. I hope he continues his repair work at the library - with pay this time.
@AnAsmom, and others, so I didn’t miss that Olive had been told about Harry’s attempt. Thought I had missed it. Thanks. As @mary13 it was Cohens attempt to be ambiguous.
I finished “Harry’s Trees” last night. Although I agree with most of the previous posts about how so much is unrealistic, I really liked the book. Would my reaction be the same if I hadn’t read it during a pandemic? Possibly not – but I was ready for something that was slightly magical, easy to read, and transported me somewhere else.
Oriana was mature beyond her years in some ways, but so childlike in others. Comments on a few of the other characters: Stu was a total sleaze – for me he was the most unlikeable character. Wolf was a bully, but still protective of his little brother. Cliff recording Amanda seemed out of character and unnecessary to the story. Olive was somewhat mystical/witchy.
Did I mention I can be a sucker for a happy ending? Especially during these trying times …
The first time Harry and Olive meet - run into each other at the wall - she mourns the broken branch on the tree and tells him her love story. He shows her the wedding ring he’s taken off and tells her his wife died. The rope that Harry used still lies against the wall also (I think). Anyway, the location of the wall, the broken branch, the death of Harry’s wife and the sheer coincidence of Oriana, The Grum’s Ledger, Harry’s arrival, bags of gold - Olive is a canny old woman and able to put all the dots together. Except one I think: she thanks Harry for saving the library. I tend to credit Ronnie.