Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary
Science Writing Award
**
"Injects much-needed vibrancy into the stuffy world of nature writing."
--Outside, "The Outdoor Books That Shaped the Last Decade"
**
The biologist and author of Sounds Wild and Broken combines elegant
writing with scientific expertise to reveal the secret world hidden in a
single square meter of old-growth forest
In this wholly original book, biologist David Haskell uses a
one-square-meter patch of old-growth Tennessee forest as a window onto
the entire natural world. Visiting it almost daily for one year to trace
nature's path through the seasons, he brings the forest and its
inhabitants to vivid life.
Each of this book's short chapters begins with a simple observation: a
salamander scuttling across the leaf litter; the first blossom of spring
wildflowers. From these, Haskell spins a brilliant web of biology and
ecology, explaining the science that binds together the tiniest microbes
and the largest mammals and describing the ecosystems that have cycled
for thousands- sometimes millions-of years. Each visit to the forest
presents a nature story in miniature as Haskell elegantly teases out the
intricate relationships that order the creatures and plants that call it
home.
Written with remarkable grace and empathy, The Forest Unseen is a
grand tour of nature in all its profundity. Haskell is a perfect guide
into the world that exists beneath our feet and beyond our backyards.
