First Lines of Richard Powers "The Overstory"

 "First, there was nothing. Then there was everything.

Then, in a park above a western city after dark, the air is training messages. A woman sits on the ground, leaning against a pine. Its bark presses hard against her back, as hard as life. its needles scent the air and a force hums in the heart of the wood. Her ears tune down to the lowest frequencies. The tree is saying things, in words before words."

- Richard Powers, The Overstory.

The beginning section (Roots) of this Pulitzer Prize winning novel is so entertaining, powerful, and full of universal truths that it might just be the best thing I've ever read. Powers introduces eight different narratives, each one in its own short story and it's one hell of a ride - filled with love and disillusionment and betrayal and random acts of cruel fate. It feels real. The later sections of the book weave the characters together in different ways and so far (I've been reading the rest of the book in slow sips, saving and savoring its taste like a rare scotch) it's still excellent but does pale, just a bit, in comparison with that tour de force of an overture. Pick it up - you wont be disappointed.

First Lines of Peter Wohlleben's "The Hidden Life of Trees"

 "Years ago, I stumbled across a patch of strange-looking mossy stones in one of the preserves of old beech trees that grows in the forest I manage. Casting my mind back, I realized I had passed by them many times before without paying them any heed. But that day, I stopped and bent down to take a good look. The stones were an unusual shape: they were gently curved with hollowed-out areas." 
- Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees

A wonderful little book filled with close observations about the trees all around us. Trees turn out to be so much more complex than we usually think, and Wohlleben paints an alluring picture of their life at a MUCH slower pace than we are used to perceiving. I found this book insightful and enabled me to see new aspects about the trees around me - for example, the splits in the bark of young trees that are growing too fast because they were planted away from the forest. Good stuff.