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Peter Wohlleben, author portrait

Peter Wohlleben

English
Born 1964
Peter Wohlleben is a German forester and author who writes on ecological themes in popular language and has controversially argued for plant sentience. He is the author of the New York Times Best Seller The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, which was translated from German into English in 2016.
On LuvemBooks, we've reviewed The Hidden Life of Trees.
1
Books Reviewed
Cover of The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from

4.7/5

reader rating · 13,679 ratings

Peter Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees, originally published in Germany as Das geheime Leben der Bäume and released in English by Greystone Books in 2016, makes a quietly revolutionary argument: that forests are social networks, and that trees communicate, nurture their young, share resources with the sick, and warn one another of danger. A New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal bestseller, it is one of the defining works of popular nature science of the past decade, and its reach has only grown since its first English-language edition.

Reviewed Apr 3, 2026

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Authors Like Peter Wohlleben
Ed Yong

Ed Yong

Science & Nature
Ed Yong's An Immense World explores animal senses rather than forests, similarly revealing rich, hidden non-human experiences that lie beyond casual observation.
1 book reviewed
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around
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Zoë Schlanger

Science & Nature
Zoë Schlanger’s The Light Eaters brings rigorous science journalism and lab scrutiny to questions of plant cognition explored through Wohlleben’s forester wonder.
1 book reviewed
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence
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Johnjoe McFadden

Science & Nature
Johnjoe McFadden's Life on the Edge explores hidden physical processes inside living things, uncovering counterintuitive quantum effects much like Wohlleben illuminates underground biological networks.
1 book reviewed
Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology by Johnjoe McFadden and Jim Al-Khalili
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Jim Al-Khalili

Science & Nature
Jim Al-Khalili's Life on the Edge reveals hidden physical processes inside living things, swapping underground ecological networks for counterintuitive quantum biology.
1 book reviewed
Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology by Johnjoe McFadden and Jim Al-Khalili
Jonathan Balcombe

Jonathan Balcombe

Science & Nature
Jonathan Balcombe's What a Fish Knows similarly upends assumptions about misunderstood living things, exploring the rich inner lives and social capacities of fish.
1 book reviewed
What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins
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Thomas McNamee

Science & Nature
The Inner Life of Cats applies the same empathetic popular-science lens to felines that Peter Wohlleben brings to forests, blending observation with emotional narrative.
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The Inner Life of Cats: The Science