Goethe's Oak

"This story began in 2015 during a visit to the Buchenwald Memorial near Weimar, Germany. There, beside tributes to the concentration camp's human victims, I unexpectedly encountered a large tree stump upon which visitors had left hundreds of small stones--a tradition in Jewish culture intended to honor the souls of the dead. Nearby, a small plaque read 'Goethe Eiche.' Goethe's Oak. I wanted to know more about this tree. . . . What special meaning did it hold for Buchenwald's prisoners, and for others?"-- John T. Price, from the Prologue WRITING FROM THE perspective of the legendary Goethe's Oak, John T. Price reimagines and honors the life of an extraordinary tree. Drawing on centuries of human remembrances, from the tree's namesake, writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to prisoners at Buchenwald in the 1940s, Price intertwines their stories with recent scientific research into the underground communication networks of trees. Goethe's Oak offers readers a poignant yet inspiring picture of nature's ability to comfort.