Forest Unseen

<b><b>Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award<br></b><br>Injects much-needed vibrancy into the stuffy world of nature writing. --<i>Outside</i> The Outdoor Books That Shaped the Last Decade</b><br><b><br>The biologist and author of <i>Sounds Wild and Broken </i>combines elegant writing with scientific expertise to reveal the secret world hidden in a single square meter of old-growth forest <p/></b>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. <p/>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. <p/>Written with remarkable grace and empathy <i>The Forest Unseen</i> 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.