Plant scientist Hope Jahren studies trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. She shares her inspiring life story, in a book about work, about love, and about the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It's about the things she's discovered in her lab, as well as how she got there; about her childhood - hours of unfettered play in her father's laboratory; about how she found a sanctuary in science, about a brilliant and wounded man named Bill, who became her loyal colleague and best friend; about their adventurous, sometimes rogue research trips, which take them from the Midwest all across the United States and over the Atlantic, from the ever-light skies of the North Pole to tropical Hawaii; and about her constant striving to do and be the best she could, never allowing personal or professional obstacles to cloud her dedication to her work. Jahren's probing look at plants, her astonishing tenacity of spirit, and her insights on nature enliven every page, allowing us to see the beautiful, sophisticated mechanisms within every leaf, blade of grass, and flower petal, and also the power within ourselves to face life's ultimate challenge: discovering who you are. Hope Jahren is a professor of geobiology at the University of Hawai'i.