Book Review: The History of Bees

The History of Bees

by: Maja Lunde

Publication Date: August 22, 2017
Finished on: August 19, 2017
Publisher: Touchstone

Thank you to the publisher, Touchstone, for sending me a BEAUTIFUL finished copy of this book in return for my honest review.  All opinions expressed below are my own.

Synopsis:
The History of Bees follows the lives of three distinct characters (in alternating chapters) living decades apart:

• William * 1852 * England
• George * 2007 * United States
• Tao * 2098 * China

There are similar trends throughout each plotline - beekeeping, the relationship between (wo)man and nature, parent-child dynamics, and global/environmental change.  Maja Lunde skillfully relates the real-life risk of colony collapse disorder and imagines a dystopian future where nature its completely different than what we currently have.  

The History of Bees is already a #1 International bestseller and originally published in Norwegian.  This release is (I believe) the first English translation of the text.

The first character that we meet in the novel is Tao, living in 2098 China.  Tao works at an orchard, manually placing pollen on flowers since bees are extinct.  For me, Tao is the heroine of our novel.  Residing in our future and working at a back-breaking job, she is the one who needs to figure out if and how society can move forward.

Next we meet William, living in 1852 England.  William is a bed-ridden ex-researcher who is in a state of depression.  William's grapples with watching his children growing up distinctly different than him and also has to come to terms with maybe not being the success he once envisioned himself to be.

Finally, we meet George, living in Ohio in 2007.  George is a beekeeper.  His storyline tells us about the current (as of the writing of the text) bee situation in the industrialized world.  George is the epitome of small-town United States farmer.  He has strong opinions on how things should be done, what people should eat (meat!) and how things should (or should not) change.  If my grandfather were alive in 2007, I envision him be a curmudgeon farmer like George.  George has to watch the huge changes in what was historically a family farming business and the potential downfall of beekeeping from the front lines.

My review:
First, lets talk about this book's cover.  This book is insanely gorgeous!  I do sometimes pick books by their covers, so this would have been an instant pick for me regardless of the topics at hand.  It has varying shades of blues and greens with THE HISTORY OF BEES in a happy yellow.  This would make a pretty enough cover, but then they added metallic gold paint specks all over the front cover.  Its hard for me to photograph well, but this cover is insane.  A+ to Cherlynne Li for the jacket design!

I always tab pages that I want to go back to when I'm finished reading a book, and This book has probably 20-30 tabs.  There were so many quotes and messages that hit home for me -- a sign of a great piece of literature.

Maja Lunde artfully informs the reader while weaving together the different characters' storylines.  The History of Bees is a superb example of a character driven novel - I felt each character's successes and defeats personally.  The characters were well developed, even if if I didn't always agree with their decisions.  It is hard for me to believe that this is Ms. Lunde's first adult novel.

"She read about knowledge.  About acting against one's instincts, because one knows better, about how in order to live in nature, with nature, we must detach ourselves from the nature in ourselves.  And about the value of education.  Because this is what education was actually about, defying the nature in oneself."

This novel touches on so many things, that I can't begin to try to review everything.  For me, the above quote reflects what this novel is really about - knowledge, acting in a way that is good for all, education and sustaining nature.  This novel will hit you on many fronts and force you to think about your life and your role in society.  Ms. Lunde does an amazing job at creating a dystopian world that illustrates what could happen in our not-so-distant future while also giving us hope at the same time.

Overall, I rate this 4/5 stars.  The History of Bees is an insightful glimpse into the art of beekeeping while exploring a variety of important current issues.  Hopefully this novel will help a few readers think more about their personal relationship with their families, society and nature.