The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature

A 2013 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for General Nonfiction

A biologist reveals the secret world hidden in a single square meter of forest

Written with remarkable grace and empathy, The Forest Unseen is a grand tour of nature in all its profundity. Biologist David George 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… (more)

A 2013 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for General Nonfiction

A biologist reveals the secret world hidden in a single square meter of forest

Written with remarkable grace and empathy, The Forest Unseen is a grand tour of nature in all its profundity. Biologist David George 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. Beginning with simple observations-a salamander scuttling across the leaf litter, the first blossom of spring wildflowers-Haskell spins a brilliant web of biology, ecology, and poetry, explaining the science binding together ecosystems that have cycled for thousands-sometimes millions-of years.