A Year in the Maine Woods

by Bernd Heinrich

Escapist fantasies usually involve the open road, but Bernd Heinrich's dream was to focus on the riches of one small place—a few green acres along Alder Brook just east of the Presidential Mountains. The year begins as he settles into a cabin with no running water and no electricity, built of hand-cut logs he dragged out of the woods with a team of oxen. There, alone except for his pet raven, Jack, he rediscovers the meaning of peace and quiet and harmony with nature—of days spent not filling out forms, but tracking deer, or listening to the sound of a moth's wings. Throughout this year when "the subtle matters and the spectacular distracts," Heinrich brings us back to the drama in small things, when life is lived consciously. His story is that of a man rediscovering what it means to be alive.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Memoir, Science, Natural History, Environment, Birds

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Bernd Heinrich was born in Germany (April 19, 1940) and moved to Wilton, Maine as a child. He studied at the University of Maine and UCLA and is Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Vermont.

He is the author of many books including Winter World, Ravens in Winter, Mind of the Raven, and Why We Run. Many of his books focus on the natural world just outside the cabin door.

Heinrich has won numerous awards for his writing and is a world class ultra-marathon runner.

He spends much of the year at a rustic cabin that he built himself in the woods near Weld, Maine.

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly what's on my mind right now are the fall colors. I go around gaping, as if I have never seen anything like it before. Perhaps I haven't; I'm never quite sure. I could see this display every year and not grow tired of it, like seeing the flight of geese, or hearing the bird songs in spring. I remember, and that might reduce the amazement. But I don't remember the edge --- the vividness of the spectacle.

Ooh! A year in the Maine woods sounds dreamy, doesn't it? Until you remember that a year also includes WINTER.

The temperature inside the cabin is 20°F . . .

On my way to the outhouse I read the outside thermometer. It reads -20°F --- 40 degrees colder than inside --- a consolation.

And, then there's all the mice, and the thousands of flies . . .

Nature writer Bernd Heinrich takes to the woods to spend 365 days discovering the world around him . . . and what he discovers is more than just nature.

I may not have really noticed it, but I think that since "growing up" I'd been constantly taking on more and more responsibilities and projects. To have any chance of getting them done, I'd gradually been speeding up until finally I arrived in the fast lane. The landscape had become a blur, after a while, I did not really see it any more. I may still have known it was there, but only because I recognized the cues from previous experience. Perhaps life was flashing by like a tape player speeded up. I recognized the sound, but I did not hear the music.

I've spent every single day this year looking at the hills. I've spent hours doing "nothing." Day. Maybe weeks. I do not think it has been wasted.

Through his lovely, descriptive writing, we get to experience the changing seasons, and all the new wonders each month brings.

The hillsides are still gray from the bare twigs. But every day we see more pastel patches of red, purple, yellow, and pale green of swelling buds. The sight is not spectacular. Nevertheless, its subtle beauty is assured by the long months of winter when the snow swirled through the trees and only the hardiest animals stayed in the world of white birches, gray maples, and black-green spruces. Now millions more birds are on their way back again. They'll be here in days to begin their jubilation. Right now, spring is my favorite season. In a month the indigo bunting will sing and build its nest in the brambles. Two months later, the maples will turn red and yellow. That will again be my favorite season. Here, my favorite season is always the one I'm in.

Yeah, I could spend a year in the Maine woods . . . as long as my cabin has heat, electricity, indoor plumbing, wifi . . .

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book at one of those 'Giant Book Sale' things that always seem to pop up in the same place after a Circuit City or Staples shuts down. It was 68 cents.

With no preamble, ol' Bernd Heinrich tells you he's driving to his cabin in the woods with his newly trained pet raven. And when he gets there he counts and catalogs every bird, bug, tree, weed, sound and fluffy cloud pattern. He casually drops lines like 'On this morning's 30-mile run, I saw blank and blank and blank.'

Now, I ask you. You accidentally find a book written by a dude who decides to move his shit to the woods for the year with only a wild bird and a weird appetite for supermarathons and caterpillar counting. Don't you read this book from cover to cover? Yes. Yes sir, you do.

Turns out that Bernd is a famous scientist and a sorta famous distance runner and has written a ton of sciency books. Never heard of the guy, and he certainly doesn't toot a horn. Does a pretty good Thoreau impression without being hoity-toity about it.

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book, but for the right person. It will not fit everybody.

The author, a naturalist and teacher, spends one year in his cabin in Maine. It is a log cabin that scarcely stays warm. He cuts down trees and chops his lumber. He has no running water. No refrigerator. He is divorced, but his kids do not live with him, although his son of nine does visit. He comes to the cabin to refind himself, to slow down and also to raise and continue his studies of ravens. This author has written several other books. I preferred both The Snoring Bird: My Family's Journey Through a Century of Biology and Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival.

This naturalist is continually puzzling out how our world works. On every walk, with every thought, with every action, on every viewing of the world around him he poses questions about nature. Then he figures out how to find the answer. He measures growth of trees, he watches red squirrels and discovers how they make syrup, he studies animals and bugs and plants and the formation of the earth. Everything of nature interests him. He opens his eyes and sees the moon and then he explains for example why the moon has the same appearance (i.e. the same amount and shape visible) for all who can view it. He measures the minutes more of sunlight he has every day. The world is a big laboratory for him. In this book he puzzles out and explains in detail how all parts of his world in the woods works during the summer, fall, winter and finally spring.

I believe the more knowledgeable you are about different species of fauna and flora, the more you will get out of this book. When he mentions that he came across a particular insect, it helps to know which insect he is talking about. I didn’t always. Sometimes I could not follow his detailed explanations. Sometimes I would have preferred just a sentence about the beauty of that around him. He did think the fall leaves in all their different hues were magnificent, but he immediately started analyzing why some trees have only one fall color while others have several. He did look at the world around him and compare it to how people behave. Are we the same? Are we different? What can we learn from this phenomenon?

There were many beautiful line drawings of twigs and buds, of plants and animals.

To conclude I would have preferred a little less science and more about ravens. He loves ravens. When he talks about them, you know where his heart is. When his baby raven leaves, when he grows up and flies away, it breaks my heart (not his). I would have preferred more about his relationship with Jack, the raven. I didn’t want that to end. But of course it had to, and it happens early in the book!

[Ian Beardsell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waking to the twittering of phoebes and robins. Watching the moon rise over several evenings so you can time the daily difference in its schedule. Dissecting cocoons to study the progress of metamorphosis.

Bernd Heinrich's book is somewhat different than the usual escape-to-the-cabin-in-the-woods fare. If you are looking for long inward looks at life and philosophy, and have little interest in the natural world, then this book may not be for you. I have a somewhat scientific bent, and even I found the author's engrossed fascination with every species of bird, lichen, plant, parasite--you name it--a bit over the top sometimes. But that is exactly what makes Bernd Heinrich who he is, and his book somewhat different and unique, and this, I think, is a good thing.

I would pick the book up and read just a few pages during this summer of Covid-19 when I had a spare moment, and it was well-suited to this. It had no complicated plot or sophisticated thread of rhetoric to follow. You could pick it up and enter the world Heinrich experienced and related it to you, as a naturalist spending time in the Maine woods around his cabin exploring the details of nature that struck his fancy, one day at a time. Heinrich lived that year in the woods by relearning how to focus on small things (often quite literally) and become more fully conscious of his living in each moment.

With the occasional family memory or personal anecdote thrown in to illustrate some point of his explorations, you also get a sense of autobiography and personal philosophy about the author. On the whole, Heinrich reminds us that anyone can stop and look at the details of life and nature around them, and by exploring it with a gentle rigor, use this personal curiosity to practice the primary elements of science.

This afternoon I took a short nature hike in the north shore mountains above Vancouver. I found myself listening to the twittering of the birds, noticing which plants flowers had turned to seed, and peering down into the shallow waters of a small alpine lake to wonder at what creatures may be down there. I had left the worries of the work week behind and became more fully present in myself and the beautiful world around me. And that's a good thing. Thanks to Bernd Heinrich for the reminder.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Year in the Maine Woods

I enjoyed this book. Basically it is comprised of field notes on each month of the year largely spent around his cabin and the nearby woods. The writing is descriptive in a nature kind of way and at times it is even poetic. It does suffer a bit due to a lack of plot or arc.

Here are some notes on topics I found interesting.

1. Eskers are formed by streams tunneling deep in the glacier and then filling with gravel before the glacier melts. When the glacier melts the gravel ridges are left behind.

2. Heinrich believes the camels, rhinos, horses, giant ground sloths, musk oxen, mastodons, mammoths and glyptodonts were native to America but went extinct because they were too tame around people.

3. Maine is the most heavily forested state at 90%. It achieved statehood in 1820 and reached its peak population in 1840!

4. Heinrich found a spotted salamander under the wood pile. They have fatty tails which provide their energy stores.

5. The tent caterpillars spin their webs over the apple trees.

6. Unaltered sugar maple sap is almost tasteless with 98% made of water. It is only by removing the water that the sugar becomes noticeable. I wonder if the Native Americans were the first to eat the syrup.

7. Wound the xylem, drain the sap and let evaporation do its work. The beginning of the sugaring begins in spring.

8. Ducks and blue herons and mergansers can be seen on the pond in the spring.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I have a mailbox at the foot of the trail, and rural delivery brings the outside world that far, which is far enough. The newspaper, delivered daily to my mailbox, is a convenience I need to help start my fire in the morning. Not wanting to waste anything, I sometimes even read it,” writes Heinrich.

Yes. A year in the Maine woods. A favorite theme of mine: guy goes off into the woods, cuts down some trees and builds a cabin reminiscent of Thoreau and Burroughs. Then said guy spends a year observing his neighbors: the plants and animals that live around him. But no one does it quite like Heinrich, a trained biologist, entomologist, ornithologist, professor of zoology. To be a scientist is to be curious. He not only explores the countryside, he investigates its tiniest secrets. Caterpillars, mayflies, glowworms, burying beetles. All have their little bug-hearted ways of getting along in this world.

Heinrich is interested in the small things, in a place where “the subtle matters and the spectacular distracts.” And distracts. And distracts. And distracts. And pretty soon an entire year has past.

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. I only read this at night before sleep and sometimes in the morning if I awakened too early, so usually only manage less than fifty pages, but I savor most every sentence. Heinrich is so nature-appreciative. So I'm really looking forward to his other books.

Quotes to remember:

"To walk in the woods and not recognize the songs [of the birds] is to not hear them. To not think of the birds' uniquely beautiful and artfully concealed nests is to have the woods seem empty. Most of us are like sleepwalkers here, because we notice so little."

"This abundance of secretions attracts even more blackflies, and they descent as soon as I shur off the saw and pick up the ax for limbing. But I don't begrudge them; they are part of the bargain. It is these tiny critters that help keep Maine green, by keeping people out." (Emphasis mine!)

"Every time I build a fire to heat up a cup of coffee, it represents precious time that I have had to invest."

"Today I did a 30-mile run, painfully, but at the end I discovered the absolute tip-top of pleasure. The tip-top of pleasure is sitting down at your desk in front of a window with a view toward Mount Bald, with a cup of hot coffee beside you and nothing to do but think or ruminate and scribble with your pen in a notebook."

"On the grass this morning, there was unmistakable white hoar frost. Yet I had to touch it with my fingers to become convinced."

"The ravens play individually, in pairs, or in samll groups; they circle high, dive, fold their wings, and shoot up or down with one or several of their fellows. They chase and frolic, tarry, turn loops; they make croaks, high cries, and rattling sounds. They do anything but fly in formation. They remind you of a bunch of schoolboys wandering down a lonely road, kicking a ball along. The geese fly mechanically, calling unvaryingly and beating their wings at a steady disciplined rhythm like soldiers marching off."

"But, above all, [trees] can make forest and wilderness, at the same time that they are making energy."

"Until now the hard discipline to follow through has rousted me outdoors on sub-zero days even before daylight. Now I need some other focus to give meaning to every day. Life is not a spectator sport."

"I have no words with which to conjure up in your mind the lilting, lisping song of a black-throated blue warbler, nor with which to give you even a taste of the vibrant, energetic refrain of a winter wren.These sounds come from another world that must be experienced to be felt. There is a limitation of vicarious experience, which reminds me of why I came to these woods in the first place."

"Around a bend, a pair of wood ducks makes squeaking calls and rises with splashing and then whistling wings. You do not see the male's brilliant garb of red, purple, green, and blue. But you know you are hearing the jewels of the marsh." (Emphasis mine.)

[Matt Mattus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each of us will find a book that changes our life, or at the very least, one which stays with us for a lifetime. This book is one of less than five books in my life, that truly and deeply, stays with me. It's one of those books that I pull out of my library often to re read, perhaps 6 or 7 times now, often randomly selecting chapters based on what season I am in.

[Ute · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein Wissenschaftler verbringt ein Jahr als Einsiedler und läßt uns Lesende an allen seinen Beobachtungen teilhaben - man lernt vieles über Heinrichs Raben und die gesamte ihn umgebende Natur; aber auch über das Brotbacken und über eine Mondfinsternis.

1. Satz - Ich delegiere nicht gern und tue am liebsten alles selbst.
letzter - Hier halte ich mich am liebsten auf, das ist zu Hause für mich, wo die Kleinigkeiten Bedeutung haben und Sensationelles nur ablenkt.

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved reading this as Heinrich's cabin isn't too far from where I grew up. There's something magical about the woods of Maine.

[Mind the Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

En fredag i november nådde jag fram till denna skylt, efter en pirrig pilgrimspromenad från Concord till Walden Pond, där Thoreau genomförde sitt filosofiska frihetsprojekt:



Den då nyskilde professorn Bernd Heinrichs skildring av ett år i en timmerstuga i Maine är förvisso thoreauporrig, men det finns ett problem i följande:

"I went into the woods without looking for anything in particular, and without any predetermined goal."

Först på sidan 231 av 258 kommer detta klargörande. Då har man sida upp och sida ner tagit del av allehanda skalbaggssorter, flugor, fåglar, mossor och bladformationer. Heinrich är dock alldeles för brutalt karnivor för att det ska bli en njutbar läsupplevelse.

Däremot är det trevligt att följa observationer under fyra årstider i Maine: ljusgröna ekar, skuttande rådjur, smarta korpar, den legendariskt newenglandska höstlövsprakten samt den hårda vintern när man måste knuffa upp dörren hårt p.g.a. snödrivor och gå ut i skogen och knacka hål på isen som täcker vattenkällan.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I enjoyed reading this book, I would not recommend it to most people. You really have to enjoy reading about nature, particularly trees, plants, insects and birds. It's a journal style book of the year the author spends living at his cabin in the woods in western Maine. The author is an entomologist and ornithologist as well as a professor, so the nature descriptions are very detailed and somewhat scientific. You get a pretty good insight though into what it's like to live that way and how priorities and habits change. He doesn't keep himself isolated either, so the stories include other people as well. The text was informative, humorous and somewhat thought provoking...although I felt it dragged a bit at the end.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book and almost gave it 5 stars. The author spends a year in his cabin in the Maine woods, no electricity or running water. He observes everything around his cabin--birds, bugs, frogs, weather, people, stars and planets. His respect for and his admiration and knowledge of nature was deeply moving to me, and he is passing all that on to his children and the students he teaches/taught (he was a professor at the University of Vermont--i think he's retired now). I wish there were more people like him.

[Dylan Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disarmingly thoughtful read about Bernd spending a year in his cabin, recording his natural and personal observations of the Maine wilderness. I'd read his running book and been recommended this (thanks M'att) but don't find myself usually able to appreciate slower paced, aimless reads.

Bernd certainly isn't aimless, and I admired how much he emphasized that he was not doing much in the woods, yet also wasn't wasting any time. Being bored is a skill, and one I think I need to improve. His pace of life and the way he chooses to invest his time is very deliberate, and I found myself slowing down to match him. Very worthy read.

[Divya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took a while to finish this book because it is one of those books that hover around your house, reading a little bit now here by the living room and then again after a few days by the bedroom window, because it's structured so and I think it's enjoyable this way. I've read another book by Bernd Heinrich before, 'The Snoring Bird', a far more intense account of his family's escape from WWII so cleverly interspersed with natural history notes and nature's early influence in his life. This book is pleasantly mild, a collection of simple, beautiful observations through the seasons of a year, of the dynamics of nature and human life spent alone in a cabin in the woods, crafting neat little experiments to engage the curious mind, a glimpse into his thoughts, emotions, and principles of life, so many of which I share as I continue to learn and evolve. It is light for those who want to read something harmless after a long day, it is engaging for those who want to skulk around the house on an off-day, and it is filled with small adventures and learning for those who are interested in a story. I think this is one for my eventual bookshelf of the future, to pick up and read a page every time I walk by it.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite season is always the one I'm in. Bernd Heinrich is zoologist and a naturalist. He takes a year leave of absence from the University of Vermont where he is a professor, to spend in his beloved woods in Maine. I enjoyed reading about the trip to his cabin with Jack, his pet raven, comical to say the least. He loves ravens and will spend many, many hours in a tree observing them over the next year. This book reads like a journal with daily entires along with drawings of different plant life. Bernd is not in total seclusion, he goes into town, breaks bread with neighbors and teaches a seminar for some college students. The cabin has no electricity and no running water but he thrives off of the simple life which I would call roughing it. He survives the harsh environment, in the winter the temperature is -20 to -40. There were a few times I got bored with the deatil of the plant life he described but his writing made it a most enjoyable book and I learned many things I didn't know. Reading it was very relaxing for me.

[Dona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Join famous marathon runner and University of Vermont professor of zoology Bernd Heinrich as he almost single-handedly builds a two-story cabin in the Maine woods, runs twenty-five miles a day in addition to hiking, charts the changing colors of autumn foliage leaf by leaf, andfeeds his "pet" raven Jack roadkill treats (his truck's bumper sticker reads, "This truck stops for roadkill")--among other super human accomplishments.

I've had this book for about ten years but never read it--I was missing out. Heinrich's writing is amusing and descriptive, and his ruminations are interesting. The last two lines of the book have cultural implications: But I've come back to the hills of western Maine. These are my favorite haunts, because this is home, where the subtle matters, and the spectacular distracts.

[Katharine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heinrich gives us a good look at life without modern amenities in central Maine. HIs descriptions of creatures and the interactions they have on a life cycle stage is fantastic and worthy of the parts where his blindness to his own solitary state makes you want to shake him.

He pines for a family after two ruined marriages. He should read Alice Miller, Drama of the Gifted Child to keep from repeating his mistakes.

All that human drama on the side, the creatures, ravens and insects are exciting indeed.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable back-to-nature read by Professor Bernd Heinrich. His year-long observations of the flora and fauna of the area in an around his log cabin in Maine are at times esoteric, at times humorous, at times philosophical, yet always insightful.

Fans of this book might also enjoy the nature books of Anne LaBastille and Helen Hoover.

[Les Wolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

An author with a deep appreciation and understanding of nature in all it's various manifestations. Heinrich has an intimate historical and topographical knowledge of this particular patch of Maine with it's impressive congregation of birds, insects, trees and mammals. He mixes science with casual observations, philosophy with notes on propagation and astronomy with logic. Heinrich is an excellent artist and includes many of his drawings throughout the book.

[Reacher · Rating 2 out of 5]

worth the time, though this book does read like a botany or entomology textbooks at times, going into excruciating detail about the nature around him for page after page. this guy also drinks more coffee and writes about drinking coffee more than anyone i've ever read. i wonder what color his teeth are.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible journey of the cycle of life in the Maine woods. I had a summer cabin not too far from this location and this book makes me want to go back and experience all of the seasons, not just summer.

This was just what I needed to get centered and grounded. Sort of a zen experience vicariously.

I would definitely recommend this book.

[Elizabeth Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is slow and deliberate, just like the undertaking of living off grid in the Maine woods for an extended period of time. It offers patient observations of wildlife in the woods and a delightful meditation on the seasons and changes of the woods. If you are into nature journals, you will find this book both easy to read and a pleasure to travel through.

[Vickie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really should have stopped reading this book early on. I know some people will love it but it wasn’t for me. I like books about people. I would see glimmers of hope from time to time but the very detailed descriptions of for instance, a moth or flies, including his drawings would be interesting to someone else. I like to hear more personal stories about people.

[Joan Schenking · Rating 1 out of 5]

One would think that a year in the Woods of Maine would be more enlightening for both the author and the reader. Perhaps if he spent less time drinking beer and finding dead calves for his beloved ravens we all could have learned something. I finished it...must have had insomnia.

[Ted Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable. Man in the woods for a year by himself - these kind of books interest me. I wish authors like this could see creation as it is and not some random collision of atoms. It would seem the world would be even more wonderful instead of meaningless chaos.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

physical book : slow going at times, much like living in solitary can be. A beautiful scientific journal of a year in the woods of our beautiful state.

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bernd Heinrich, a professor of Zoology at the University of Vermont, spent twenty-five years teaching, which also meant endless hours filling out forms, reading memos, filling out grant applications, sitting in meetings and writing papers. It was not how he wanted to spend his life. He longed to be outdoors spending time in the woods observing the wildlife, especially the birds, watching the seasons, thinking and writing. It was what he loved, a passion nurtured when he was young by his father who collected beetles and spent a lot of time outdoors. After getting the go ahead from his publisher for a book about his experience to help fund his expenses for a year and released from his marriage by his wife’s request for a divorce, he asked for and received a leave of absence from the university and left to spend a year isolated in the Maine woods, taking his pet Jake, a fledgling raven as his only companion.

As he prepared for his adventure, Heinrich recalled the work of Henry David Thoreau who had retreated to Walden Pond and wrote about that experience. However, their ventures would be different in that Thoreau’s approach to nature relied more on his intuitive understanding of his environment while Heinrich’s project was to be based not just on observation, but rooted in scientific inquiry. Both these men were fascinated by the mysteries of the natural world and how it contrasted with their experience of their everyday life which Thoreau most famously described as one of “quiet desperation”. Although separated by several years, each man was captivated by nature, wildlife and the cycle of the seasons.

Heinrich settled in a self constructed cabin without electricity or running water to study and write. He was not completely isolated as he got the daily newspaper at his mailbox at the end of the road to his property and installed a phone and answering machine in a neighbour’s outhouse. But for the most part he was alone, with just Jake for company.

Heinrich divides his first-person account into four parts according to the seasons. He begins his adventure in late summer and knows he has much work to do to prepare for the cold winter. He digs a latrine, chops wood, builds an aviary for the ravens he will study, plants a garden, winterizes the cabin and prepares a maple syrup tapping station. He takes long walks and picks wild berries but with every task he does, he observes the land, the wildlife, the trees and plants that surround him. He records his experiences in entries similar to that of a diary, with some entries dated and some not. Some accounts record what he did and saw that day while others simply record stream of conscious thoughts and ideas or lists of jobs he completed. He also includes short lessons in biology, astronomy and ecology.

He describes his constant battles with the cluster flies, blackflies and mosquitoes as he collects cups of their dead bodies. In a visit deep in the forest he describes a section where loggers had clear-cut a patch a few years before which was now beginning to grow back. Without the large old growth trees, the smaller trees had space and light and were growing quickly and he predicts that in a few years they will completely fill the empty space and it will look like the clear-cut had never occurred. On these jaunts he also finds evidence of the people who lived on the land before him, noting old orchards, the remains of a farmhouse or a small cemetery with stones engraved with children’s names.

Heinrich works at staying in shape by running. He is always busy and when he is not, he meditates, opening himself up to all the forest has to teach him.

Through his time, he remains fascinated by his pet raven Jake, wonders at the bird’s intelligence and describes the hours he spends hunting down roadkill to feed the ravens. But as summer advances, Jake grows increasingly more independent and in late summer takes off and does not return.

This book is intended for those who love nature and relish the idea of spending long hours in isolation studying bugs, beetles and birds. Others may find his narrative boring and self-involved and like me, are not at all interested in his gruesome recipe for braised mice. It is a book aimed at a specific audience, those who love nature and love spending long periods of time alone in the outdoors.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a top contender for my favourite book of the year so far, but it is definitely not a book for everyone. I found the combination of lyrical descriptions of scenery and wildlife, anecdotes of daily life in a cabin in the woods and incredibly nerdy details on scientific experiments to be truly entertaining, but I can see it driving some people crazy! But as Heinrich says at the close of the book: 'These are my favorite haunts, because this is home, where the subtle matters, and the spectacular distracts.' So it's definitely not a book for anyone who likes lots of action, adventure and plot!

Heinrich is a true obsessive when it comes to exploring the world and learning more about it. He loves testing out known 'facts' and sometimes comes up with surprises. I can imagine this attention to detail being infuriating to live with, but it's very engaging to read about. When he vacuums up 'a lot' of flies in his cabin, he then wonders how many 'a lot' really is, and methodically counts them...Turns out that 'a lot' is 12,800 which comes to 'nine and a half cups full, level.' At one point, he eats a caterpillar, purely because he wants to find out what it tastes like ('bland')

It's obvious that ravens are his real love - the accounts of the times he spends studying them, and especially his 'tame' raven, Jack, are both heart-warming and observant. I also loved the moment when, after spending weeks hunting deer, he finally encounters one standing right underneath the apple tree he is hiding in and instead of shooting her, just enjoys watching a wild animal so close. The deer doesn't seem to recognise him as a predator because he is up a tree - it's only when he reaches the ground that she 'erupts in sudden, violent leaps and disappears with loud warning snorts'.

Heinrich encourages us to slow down and appreciate the richness of the present moment instead of always looking forward to the next one: 'Here, my favorite season is always the one I'm in.' A beautiful book, a book for slow reading, a book which allows you to immerse yourself in the natural world of a Maine woodland. One I will definitely reread.

[Nancy Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mashup of Henry David Thoreau (going to live in a cabin in the woods), Annie Dillard (marveling at nature in your own backyard), and Edward Abbey (sure that everyone else is doing it wrong).

Thoreau
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Heinrich
I realize quite palpably now that it is life that has passed, but I feel content that I've lived it. I try to imagine what it would be like if I had the assurance that I'd never die, and wonder if life would be as sweet.