Summer World: A Season of Bounty

“Bernd Heinrich is one of our greatest living naturalists in the tradition of Gerald Durrell….A national treasure.”

—Los Angeles Times

Summer World is an intimate, accessible, and eloquent illumination of animal survival in the Summer months from Bernd Heinrich, bestselling author of Winter World and “our latter-day Thoreau” (Publishers Weekly). Pulitzer Prize-winner Edmond O. Wilson (On Human Nature) calls Heinrich’s fascinating exploration and appreciation of the natural order a, “lovely book, meticulously etched and based on impassioned but exacting scientific research,” while the New York Times Book Review raves, “Animals come to life in gripping detail...and so does Heinrich…. The man is irrepressible.”

In Summer World: A Season of Bounty, Bernd Heinrich brings us the same bottomless reserve of wonder and reverence for the teeming animal life of backwoods New England that he brought us in Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival. Now he is focusing on the animal kingdom in the extremes of the warmer months, with all its feeding, nesting, fighting, and mating.

Whether presenting disquisitions on ant wars, the predatory characteristics of wasps, the mating rituals of woodpeckers, or describing an encounter with a road full of wood frogs, Summer World never stops observing the beautifully complex interactions of animals and plants with nature, giving extraordinary depth to the relationships between habitat and the warming of the earth. How can cicadas survive—and thrive—at temperatures pushing 115°F? Do hummingbirds know what they're up against before they migrate over the Gulf of Mexico? Why do some trees stop growing taller even when three months of warm weather remain? With awe and unmatched expertise, Heinrich explores hundreds of questions like these.

Exquisitely illustrated with dozens of the author's own drawings, Summer World is Bernd Heinrich's most engaging book to date, a fascinating work from one of our very best science writers.

“Heinrich is as brilliant at depicting the highs and lows of scientific research as he is in sharing the ways and wonders of the natural world. And always, always, there is in Heinrich’s every page, wonderment.” - San Francisco Chronicle

“When warm spring days turn blustery, it’s useful to have a book writhing with the magic of summer. . . . In Summer World, the longtime author and biology professor shares reflections and experiments from his homes in Vermont and Maine. His illustrations are beautiful—as is the green print throughout the book — and his thoughts are often educational.” - Seattle Times

“This is hands-and-knees science at its most engaging...as the great greening occurs all around us, we can only hope to see half as much as Heinrich does.” - Anthony Doerr, Boston Globe

“When warm spring days turn blustery, it’s useful to have a book writhing with the magic of summer. Bernd Heinrich delivers…in ‘Summer World.’” - Seattle Times

“Bernd Heinrich—the object of my admiration—has been . . . writing about [nature] with brio, for decades. Perhaps his most attractive quality . . . . is his ability to find something intellectually stimulating whenever he steps out the door. . . . The man is irrepressible.” - New York Times Book Review

“It is possible there is a better guide to the world around us than Bernd Heinrich, but I’ve not come across him. This is the book that will get you out the door into the season!” - Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Deep Economy

“This lovely book, meticulously etched and based on impassioned but exacting scientific research, illustrate why Bernd Heinrich is generally regarded as the most truly Thoreauvian of modern natural history writers.” - Edward O. Wilson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ON HUMAN NATURE

“Bernd Heinrich’s books open my eyes and help me see the wonder of the natural world. . . . I love the fascinating details of his drawings, the lyricism of his observations, the way he unveils not only the physical workings of nature but the stories and dramas within it.” - Amy Tan, bestselling author of The Bonesetter's Daughter and The Joy Luck Club

“One of our greatest living naturalists...Heinrich, author of 15 marvelous, mind-altering books…is a national treasure.” - Los Angeles Times