b"There are certain conversations I fear trying to fit into a description. There\\u2019s just more to them than I\\u2019m going to be able to convey. This is one of them.\\n\\nRichard Powers is the author of 13 novels, including the 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning \\u201cThe Overstory.\\u201d If you haven\\u2019t read it, you should. It\\u2019ll change you. It changed me. I haven\\u2019t walked through a forest the same way again. And I\\u2019m not alone in that. When I interviewed Barack Obama this year, he recommended \\u201cThe Overstory,\\u201d saying, \\u201cIt changed how I thought about the earth and our place in it.\\u201d\\n\\nPowers\\u2019s new book is \\u201cBewilderment.\\u201d You could think of it as 'The Innerstory': It is about how and whether we see the world we inhabit. It\\u2019s about the nature and limits of our empathy. It\\u2019s about refusing to die before we\\u2019re dead and taking seriously the gifts and responsibilities of being alive. It is about how we change our minds and how we change our societies. It is about how we treat delusion as normal and clarity as lunacy. It is enchanting, and it is devastating.\\n\\nIt is not just books through which Powers has been exploring these ideas. It is also through radical changes he\\u2019s made to how he lives his life. That\\u2019s where we start but far from where we end: This conversation touches on mortality, animism, politics, old-growth forests, extraterrestrial life, Buddhism and beyond.\\n\\nMentioned:\\n\\nFinding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard\\n\\nBook recommendations:\\n\\nHow to Be Animal by Melanie Challenger\\n\\nRooted by Lyanda Lynn Haupt\\n\\nEver Green by John W. Reid and Thomas E. Lovejoy\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin."