The Forest Unseen

A 2013 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for General Nonfiction Winner of the 2013 Best Book Award from the National Academies A Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award Winner of the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center 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.