Eleanor Catton has done it again. She writes so well. Her characters are drawn and developed into complex people with backgrounds that define them. This complex web of a story has so many different aspects that all draw together. I just had to keep reading. I definitely recommend this book.

3.5 stars
This was a very slow-burner to start, to the point I almost gave up on it, but once it got into it, it did pick up and was a good, eco-thriller following g guerilla gardening group Birnam Wood who plant crops on abandoned properties. When a landslide provides a posilsible lucrative opportunity, the group have no idea the effect the prospective partnerships would have on all of them.

The tension definitely builds as the story unfolds and there a whole cast of well-drawn characters to follow. I didn't rate it higher as I felt, compared to the slower build up at the start, the ending felt a little rushed.

This is a book set in New Zealand ,about Birnam Wood, a group of guerilla gardeners run as a collective, but led by charismatic Mira, and Shelley, her flatmate and friend who runs the admin side of the group. Tony has just returned from overseas hoping to rekindle his budding relationship with Mira, but doesn't get to see her as she has gone to visit a potential site in Thorndike, where a landslide has limited access to the town. It is at the family home of Owen and Jill who have recently agreed to sell part of the land to Robert Lemoire, a manipulative American tech billionaire, who has a side business deal with Owen as part of the sale.
Mira runs into Robert on her first visit to Thorndike with devastating consequences. It's hard to say more without giving the plot away.
The story is told from the perspective of the characters mentioned above, and the way that events can be altered by small acts of deception and miscommunication.
To me, it was really interesting learning about the perspective of young people on the politics of New Zealand, and their feelings about their country and their place in the world.
A difficult read in parts, but recommended.

Birnam Wood is a slow-burn thriller about a Kiwi guerrilla gardening co-operative who get tangled up with a self-serving American billionaire. It doesn't feel like a thriller at the start, but once all the characters' stories start to intersect, the tension grows and grows until the final act when everything comes together. Some of the thrilling elements are so subtle and clever, and the reader is trusted to understand the big picture - I couldn't have predicted the ending, though. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Granta for an advanced proof of #BirnamWood

As her title suggests Eleanor Catton’s novel’s partly inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, although more in terms of its themes than its plot. Although it’s billed as an eco-thriller the story starts out at an extremely leisurely pace, a three-part piece that only gradually builds to a bloody crescendo. It’s set in a fictional version of small-town New Zealand in the moment between the end of John Key's profoundly damaging, neo-liberal government and the early optimism of Jacinda Ardern’s would-be progressive administration. It’s a cynical, broad strokes vision of New Zealand, populated by caricatures rather than fully-fledged characters that explores significant aspects of New Zealand’s social and economic predicaments from massive social inequality and uneasy power dynamics to generational discord and encroaching environmental blight.

At its heart’s an ill-fated encounter between Mira Bunting, leader of guerrilla, environmental activist group Birnam Wood, and American billionaire Robert Lemoines – a stand-in for ultra-wealthy Americans like Peter Thiel who flocked to New Zealand in the days when residency could easily be obtained for the right price. Bunting and Lemoines are brought together by their interest in a former sheep farm now owned by successful businessman Owen Darvish. Lemoines heads a tech company Autonomo that specialises in drones, tech that Darvish wants to utilise for a scheme aimed at preserving endangered birds – a fictionalisation of real-world, greenwashing operations linked to the rapidly-declining fairy tern. But Lemoines has a more sinister, hidden agenda one which former Birnam Wood member and would-be progressive journalist Tony Gallo becomes intent on exposing, that’s when he’s not caught up in pining over his lost opportunity for a relationship with Mira.

Lemoines is a stereotypical figure, possibly psychopathic and rich enough to feel confident he can control anyone he wants to. Birnam Wood is a predominantly Pākehā or white New Zealander organisation, and Catton seems to be using it to take aim at idealistic, zealous politicos whose realities are far removed from the people they claim to represent, more taken up with their personal relationships than with the causes they espouse and bogged down in theoretical discussions and ideological clashes. Even Gallo who’s the closest to heroic of Catton’s cast is a fake, his outwardly austere presentation masking his vast amounts of inherited wealth.

Catton apparently spent a lot of time immersed in the work of crime writers like Lee Child in preparation for this, something that only really comes through in the closing sections, elsewhere her style reminded me of Dave Eggers, particularly books like The Circle, although without Eggers’s sense of moral outrage or political conviction. Catton instead takes her cues from Shakespeare’s play, focusing instead on the fatal flaws of individuals, the overweening ambitions and personal desires that - like Macbeth – will ultimately lead her cast to their downfall. It’s a difficult piece to assess, I found the insights into New Zealand’s cultural landscapes fascinating, but the writing itself could be a little dry at times, and the underlying ideas a little too conventional and/or conservative for my taste. And the deliberately cardboard characters were difficult for me to relate to or, crucially, care about. I also wondered whether the narrative would have more resonance for a reader with a greater understanding of New Zealand society, for example I wondered how far this was also meant as a critique of Keys versus Ardern’s leadership or even a lament over Ardern’s hesitancies and failures in terms of far-reaching environmental, social and economic reform.

Clever and pacy and modern, with a guerilla garden collective and a billionaire with a hero complex, this novel explores so many present day issues with a light touch but some devastating consequences.

The young idealistic gardeners are as flawed as the billionaire and the boomers seeking to ride his coattails, and the characters are generally unlikeable as they follow their own selfish pursuits in the name of greater good.

Robert Lemoine, the dashing cliche of a billionaire, is riding his own agenda and everyone else becomes collateral in his designs, with an ending that's impossible to see coming and devastating consequences for all.

With some very fine writing and a strong moral narrative to consider, this is a compelling read.

My first book from Eleanor Catton and certainly won't be my last. A clever, complex and multi layered story that will have you hooked from page 1.

I can, hand on heart, say that I've never read a book about a New Zealand guerrilla gardening collective. And perhaps I never will again - mostly because I'm sure few authors would indeed be ambitious enough or inventive enough to take such a concept and turn it into something so unique.

The eponymous Birnam Wood are said gardening collective. They spend their time "breaking good" and planting fruit and vegetables in unused spaces - sometimes with, but often without, permission. Opportunity arises for them to take advantage of a landslide that has caused a local inland town to become deserted. They embark on their biggest project yet - but the land has already caught the eye of an American billionaire. He claims to being building a bunker, but it's not clear whether he can really be trusted.

I didn't know what to expect with this novel having not read Catton's The Luminaries. But being a New Zealander (albeit a displaced one currently), I was drawn in by the local connection and even more so by the fact that Catton had set this book in an area of the country I know very well (so well that I got very excited when I recognised the real place names, amongst the fictional ones). There is something about reading a novel that so unapologetically speaks to a culture that you know so well, and while that might be the norm for many nations, for me, is an unusual novelty. I loved seeing New Zealand English and Te Reo Maori weaved into the narrative, giving the whole story and its characters such a realistically and typically "Kiwi" flavour.

The novel is split into three sections. The first took a little time to find its feet, but undoubtedly lays the foundation for the rest of the story. However, once the second part arrives, the narrative begins to move at pace - so much so that the latter half of the book flew by for me. There were twists I didn't see coming and the ending left me truly surprised.

I've seen others describe this as an "eco-thriller", and that's definitely correct. But it also far more. It's Shakespearean in sensibility (hence the name): a novel where everyone thinks they are the good guy, but is anyone good really?

Overall, it was a great read. and one I'd recommend to those who really want to pick up something that seems to defy traditional genres.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book.

I loved The Luminaries (despite its almost unwieldy length) but this novel is even better. Complex, clever, wonderfully written and compelling from the first page. I think Catton really enjoyed herself and it makes the entire book a treat. A must read.

Birnam Wood is a piece of literary fiction masquerading as a page turning eco thriller. Guerrilla gardeners vs American billionaires off grid in New Zealand. The writing is far better than the average page turner, and there are knowing winks and jokes to keep lovers of literary fiction enjoying the ride. After a slow burn start, the book picks up pace, hooking the reader, and pulling them along to a page turning ending.

Eleanor Catton finally returns after winning the Booker for The Luminaries back in 2013. I imagine the pressures of following up that mammoth novel weighed heavily on her for sometime. Based upon the evidence of Birnham Wood, she spent the interim time reading, thinking about and understanding the environment. This is an eco-thriller, a study of one group that calls themselves Birnham Wood, a group that grows food on unused land, that occasionally trespass, and a billionaire who wishes to build a doomsday bunker.

This is a fast-paced novel yet full of psychological insight, great character creation and truly beautiful prose. Catton reminds you within just a few pages why she won the Booker. I read it over two sittings, with great interest, and though not every element works entirely well, these are very minor complaints and did not in any impact my enjoyment of this fine work.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

This is a remarkable book, part thriller, part eco-fiction, and part a very clever, modern take on Shakespeare’ “Hamlet”, in which an urban community voluntary farming organisation called Birnam Wood begins to farm on land (incidentally, not called Dunsinane Hill …) which is in the process of being sold to an American billionaire by a couple of arrogant, wealthy individuals . The balance of power between and within the farming group, the land's original owners, and the eventual owner keeps shifting until ultimately a vengeful “Macduff” equivalent takes on Macbeth’s equivalent in an exciting finale.

The author’s prose is brilliant, with excellent descriptions of the urban and rural landscape of New Zealand’s South Island.; main characters are well drawn, not stereotypes, and enough of their background is given to make their behaviour scarily credible. The novel is very hard to put down.

I was delighted to see that Eleanor Catton had written a new novel as I had thoroughly enjoyed her 2013 Booker winning The Luminaries. I visited New Zealand in 2018 and had appreciated seeing the locations of that book albeit 150 years after that book was set. Her new novel, Birnam Wood is set in contemporary New Zealand (2017 to be exact, so just prior to my visit). The book starts with a landslide which I could easily envisage as a similar event had led to a change in our travel plans with the northern roads of South Island being completely closed. In addition to the setting I was also intrigued by the title as Birnam Wood is an important feature in Shakespeare's Macbeth so I was curious as to the connection with present day New Zealand.
I read this book very quickly as I found it such a gripping tale. The Birnam Wood of the title is a guerilla gardening collective, founded by Mira Bunting. They plant crops on abandoned land and share the resultant food on the basis of need. Mira has an unrealistic dream that the land beyond the landslide could provide a way for the collective to at last break even. Then by chance she meets American billionaire Robert Lemoine who is also interested in the land. These two unlikely partners forge an unwritten deal by which Lemoine will buy the land and fund Birnam Wood to work it. The novel tells the story of what subsequently happens from the points of view of a number of very well drawn characters. In addition to Mira and Lemoine the reader becomes aware of the perspectives of Shelley, another collective member and close friend of Mira; recently knighted Sir and Lady Darvish who currently own the land and Tony, former collective member who is now an aspiring left wing journalist and photographer. Then there is the perspective of the increasingly present drones, the technology which has helped to make Lemoine's fortune ---
The actual setting of the tale is fictitious but very realistic. The relationships between the characters is completely believable as motivations are called into question and loyalties doubted. The tension builds and certainly kept this reader turning the pages.
I certainly highly recommend this book to those readers who enjoy good characterisation, strong sense of place, a thrilling plot and superb writing. I hope we don't have to wait another ten years for Eleanor Catton's next book.
Thanks to the publisher, Granta, for a complimentary ARC of Birnam Wood via Net Galley, in return for an honest review.

I absolutely loved Eleanor Catton's previous two novels so was intrigued to read 'Birnam Wood' which did not disappoint. 'The Rehearsal' and 'The Luminaries' were both (in very different ways) hugely ambitious and formally innovative novels which announced Catton as a major new literary talent; on the surface, 'Birnam Wood' is a more straightforward proposition, but while it may be a propulsive and compulsively readable thriller, it is also richly layered and psychologically astute, demonstrating an insight into character and motivation to rival Jane Austen or George Eliot.

Set on New Zealand's South Island, Catton's plot revolves around multiple characters converging on a single location with fundamentally different aims and each believing they will be able to outwit or exploit each other. Following a landslide on the Korowai Pass, the recently-knighted Sir Owen Darvish pauses his plan to subdivide the nearby farmland bordering the Korowai National Park and agrees to sell it to his new business partner, the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine. Meanwhile, Mira Bunting, founder of the eco-collective Birnam Wood, thinks that this unoccupied tract of land will give them an opportunity to upscale their guerrilla gardening activities, and persuades several of her fellow activists to accompany out there. Also at large in the national park is former Birnam Wood member Tony Gallo, who has become disillusioned with the group and is sceptical of their latest venture but wants to make his name as an investigative journalist by uncovering what Darvish and Lemoine are really up to.

The plotting is intricate, well-constructed and richly rewarding in its own right, but what elevates this novel is Catton's characterisation. In another novelist's hands, the shady billionaire or the left-wing radical could become ciphers or clichés, but Catton's omniscient narrator totally inhabits each character and presents their motivations with a rare level of acuity, thinking not just about how these characters see themselves and each other, but also how they believe that they see others and others see them, something which is essential to a novel which is all about deception and manipulation. For instance, describing Lemoine, Catton writes that "What thrilled him was the sense that he alone could understand himself. He loved to wonder at his own motivations, to marvel at his own eccentric mind, to evaluate himself in the second person, and then, even more deliciously, in the third." Likewise, Mira "was so determined to prove to [Lemoine] that he had met his match in her (for that was how she phrased it to herself - never that she had met her match in him), that although she still had a sense, somehow, that he was hiding something from her, she had an even stronger sense that she would be the one - she had to be the one - to find it out." Nearly all the characters construct similar narratives about themselves, and Catton has fun testing the accuracy and the limits of these as she pits them against each other in increasingly fraught circumstances. The result is something quite a rare - a literary page-turner, which works brilliantly on both levels.

This is the best novel I have read so far in 2023 and it deserves to be a strong contender for this year's major literary prizes. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review!

Eleanor Wood shot to literary fame by becoming the youngest winner of the Booker Prize in 2013 for her second luminous historical novel The Luminaries. Ten years later she returns with Birnam Wood, much more contemporary, no less New Zealand but at the same time just as universal, an deep exploration of humanity that transcends time and place. But it does so within the bounds of a constantly beguiling, utterly unexpected and gripping story.
The book opens with what could possibly be considered a typical New Zealand tragedy – a landslide on a mountain pass which kills some and cuts off the small, National Park adjacent town of Korowai. This puts an end to new local and soon to be knighted local millionaire Owen Darvish’s plan to subdivide his wife’s family farm. But in the background another, more lucrative plan was forming – to secretly sell the property to American billionaire and doomsday prepper Robert Lemoine who made his money through drone technology. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum eco-activists Mira Bunting and Shelley Noakes who run a guerrilla farming collective (they plant vegetables on public and private land) called Birnam Wood are heading towards a falling out. What keeps them together is an offer by Lemoine to fund them to set on Darvish’s land, a deal that even on its surface feels like it is with the very forces that Birnam Wood and its members campaign against. And when Catton digs into Lemoine’s real agenda is much much worse than that. Finally there is Tony, carrying a torch for Mira but disaffected by the decision to take Lemoine’s money, who soon gets a sniff that there is something more going on and decides he is going to make his name as a crusading investigative journalist.
There is a lot of set up here which Catton does mainly through deep and complex character studies. Much like The Luminaries, she takes an almost 19th Century approach to exploring and exposing her main players. She is interested in the hypocrisies and the fault lines in her characters, the grey areas in which they operate and what they tell themselves in order to justify their actions. But this also allows the story to go in completely unexpected (but also completely justifiable) directions. Just when you think Catton is going to zig, she zags, keeping readers constantly on their toes as the pressure builds.
And in around this, Catton delivers a novel of ideas and issues. She critically examines the conservation movement and the bind that it finds itself in in order to operate effectively in the world and, the idea of demonstrative conservation in which the wealthy dabble in order to pretend to show some concern for the environment and the rapaciousness of the modern companies in the face of mounting evidence of the impacts of their greed.
Catton also spends some time exploring modern New Zealand and the attitudes of New Zealanders. As an example, this reflection by Tony:
It hadn’t been until he’d gone abroad that he’d been able to identify this trait as particularly Kiwi, reflecting a broader attitude held among his countrymen that to do a thing with effort was always more respectable than to have it doe with ease; inconvenience, in New Zealand, tended to be treated as a test of character, such that it was a point of national pride to withstand discomfort or poor service without giving in to the temptation to complain.
Or this insight into the relationship between local millionaire Darvish and US billionaire Lemoine:
[Darvish] was intensely proud of their association, and felt he had fulfilled a lofty duty to his country, not just in courting foreign wealth, but in proving – in being proof – that New Zealand could hold its own among the world’s elite… At the same time, however, he wanted desperately to cut the man down to size – and in this he felt even more acutely Kiwi.
Birnam Wood shows Catton still well and truly at the top of her writing game. She makes you care about the characters and think about what they are doing and what they stand for. The writing is insightful, witty and compelling. And the plot develops as a pressure cooker, character driven and completely unexpected.

Birnam Wood is crucial to the tragedy of ‘Macbeth’, both character,and play The prophecy that he will be safe until Birnam wood marches to Dunsinane is not what it seems, and Macbeth’s foolish belief in the truth of what the witches prophesy is his undoing.
Cattan’s Birnam Wood is the name of a committed group of environmental activists, lead by Mira, determined to plant and turn scraps of land in the Korowai region of New Zealand into a productive area of sustainable and ecologically sound project growing a vast array of fruit and veg.
But someone else is also interested in this land; American billionaire Robert Leomine.
He is a survivalist and planning a bunker and invites Birnam Wood to join him.The plot has so many twists and turns, it surprises and it shocks. We learn a lot about New Zealand’s South Island, its politics and witness the group of characters battle out their issues, their mistrust and their solutions.
Much is unpredictable, ruthless and brutal, relationships turn sour, but characters are tough…tougher than we think.
Thank you #Granta and #NetGalley for my advance copy.

I read an eARC of this book so thank you to Net Galley, Eleanor Catton and the publisher for allowing this.

There was so much I liked in this book. It has eco themes, it’s so well written, it’s got thriller elements, it was a really good read. Who knew that gardening collectives could be so exciting?

I really like reading environmental fiction. We follow a group of guerrilla gardeners, who following a landslide, have an opportunity to expand at scale. A chance meeting with a billionaire who agrees to give them funding to see what they can do, sees them travelling to a national park to plant their gardens on a farm up for sale by a recently knighted owner of a pest control company.

People are not what they seem in this book. There’s a lot of morally grey characters, a lot of people who believe themselves to be moral but will justify unethical behaviour if it’s in their self interest/ self preservation. I really liked this, some of the characters capacity to justify their outrageous behaviour was eyebrow raising at times.

I liked the debate throughout this book about ethical and environmental issues. There’s debate not just from politically opposed people but within the collective themselves. These discussions revealed much about the characters. We also see narrative focussed around individuals, largely based in the present but referencing back to events that happened to them that allow them to justify their current actions. These made me feel reminiscent of the book Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. It was excellent writing and helped make the characters understandable even where they were disagreeable.

This book has a thriller element, it’s slow burn and exposition in the first half, but it ramps up at speed in the second! Making for a very exciting unravelling of character’s secrets and plans. This book could have been five star for me, if it wasn’t for the ending. I felt I needed more closure. A lot happens at the end, and it’s all very quick and it was really shocking. Being left on that note felt a little unsatisfying.

To begin with I wasn't quite sure where this book was taking me, it felt like one of the eco thrillers which seem popular at the moment, and a cautionary tale of factions which inevitably seem to occur in any movement. However as I got further into the book it became more complex with multifaceted characters and opinions and I was keen to discover the (satisfying) conclusion.
Thank you to netgalley and Granta books for an advance copy of this book.

I wasn't sure quite what to expect but from the word go I was very quickly drawn into the story. There are no chapters, just three long sections which made it difficult to know where to stop reading so I inevitably and inexorably carried on. The characters are introduced gradually and in some detail which gave me a chance to get to know them and to get a sense of the relationships between them, Mira and Shelley particularly. What I liked most is the way that they developed, how they reacted to circumstances affecting their relationship and altering their behaviour. Robert Lemoine was a complex character presenting a different face depending on who or what he was dealing with, his skill at manipulation fascinating to read. Tony on the other hand was easier to understand and while some of his political ranting was a bit beyond me I had to admire his tenacity and dogged perseverance.
The story is revealed little by little, coming together from many directions. It covers sensitive issues, exploitation of natural resources and the environment, government conspiracies and spying technology all presented in a way that is entirely natural, perfectly understandable and relevant to the story. There are unexpected twists and a gradual unraveling that was almost hypnotic in its intensity.

A terrific read, thought provoking , sometimes frightening and horribly believable but thoroughly entertaining.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy.

The ten years since the publication of Elle Catton’s Booker Prize-winning ‘The Luminaries’ has been worth the wait. ‘Birnam Wood’ is a Literary Antipodean Conservationist Thriller. Literary in that is superbly written and every sentence, every paragraph is a joy to read; Antipodean in that it is set in a fictional location in the wild South Island of NZ; conservationist in that the plot revolves around the fight by young and passionate conservationists to protect what is left of our wilderness, as machiavellian forces do their best to destroy it in the service of their own greed, and a thriller in that it is a page turner with twists and turns and an ending I could not foresee.The themes are universal and timely, but told in a way that is truly different from any other in its broad category. If you struggled to get into ‘The Luminaries’ because of its length, or complex intertwined themes, or numerous characters, do not let that put you off Catton’s new novel; it is an entirely different experience and I think will satisfy a much wider readership. What the two books do have in common is their exquisite writing, the clever plotting, the in-depth characterisation, and the NZ location. I will be amazed if this novel doesn’t win prizes and become a major best seller. It certainly deserves both. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher and author for an advance review digital copy.