When he's not writing books and articles about nature, Bernd Heinrich is teaching as a professor emeritus of Biology at the University of Vermont or roaming through the forests of western Maine. His Summer World serves as the sunny opposite of his well-received Winter World. Heinrich's musings on frogs, hummingbirds, wasps, and caterpillars imbue us with a sense of the vitality of nature all around us as we live our lives unaware. The book's line drawings and color insert smoothly complement the author's sensitive prose.
Elizabeth Royte
While Heinrich considers insects "magical" for doing so much with a pinpoint-size brain, the entomologist himself is a Dumbledore of the forestmagical himself for his ability to conjure a riot of life from what others less attuned might consider your standard Northern woodlot…the marvels that Heinrich reveals and his own enthusiasma quality he admires in the animals around himare certain to carry you along.
The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
In his pursuit of actively observing his camp in the forests of western Maine and the woods, beaver bog and gardens around his Vermont home, Heinrich (The Trees in My Forest) delights with the surprising activities of local flora and fauna-and his own scientific antics: with a pet grackle named Crackle, he raids wasp nests to see what the red-eyed vireo will do with the paper and builds platforms in trees to find out who visits the sapsucker lick (hummingbirds, hawks and warblers). For entertainment, he recommends, "There is a solution that beats... a television set with 100 channels, by a mile: watching ants and other critters." The book features such mysteries as the significance of the mating habits of wood frogs and the eating patterns of caterpillars, but Heinrich also takes time to observe Homo sapiens, remarking that, like birds, we live in a perpetual summer, not by "strenuous biannual migrations but by creating and retreating into 'climate bubbles,' " reminding readers that they need "clear vision and also a spiritual imperative so that we will focus on the ultimate ecology, not the proximate economy." (Apr.)
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Library Journal
Heinrich (biology, Univ. of Vermont; Winter World) shares his enchantment with the natural world in this title observing plant and animal behavior during a New England summertime. Factual information including feeding, nesting, and mating patterns integrates smoothly with Heinrich's easy narrative style. Audie Award winner Mel Foster's (Finding God in Unexpected Places) evenly paced, distinctly voiced, and accent-free delivery enhances the ambiance and perfectly conveys Heinrich's wonder at nature's flexibility. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the natural world. [The Ecco hc also received a starred review, LJ 4/1/09.—Ed.]—Laurie Selwyn, formerly with Grayson Cty. Law Lib., Sherman, TX
Kirkus Reviews
Heinrich (The Snoring Bird: My Family's Journey Through a Century of Biology, 2007, etc.) gets intimate with the plants and animals of summer. Understandably, since the author lives in northern Vermont and inland Maine, much of his work heretofore has been associated with the colder months, but here he tackles summer with the verve particular to those who know that season as fleeting. He is an artful storyteller, crafting his explorations into nature as tight narratives. He's also a bit of a nutty professor, as witness this interaction with bald-faced hornets: "This time I crept up slowly, lunged forward with a wad of toilet paper in my hand, and successfully plugged up their nest entrance hole before they had time to react." Anyone who has experienced a bald-faced sting knows that this is an insane act, though undoubtedly fun to read about. The author finds, and generates, just as much excitement with the regenerative capacities of moss and lichen, or wading about in ponds to take the temperature of frog eggs. This is the kind of doorstep science that encourages you to take an interest in what is happening in your yard-to attend, as Heinrich does, to the organ-pipe mud dauber building its tunnels, or a flying crane doing its strange boogie. He can sing praise to a blackfly without stretching the point, radiate a communicable joy in seeing the first spring azure of the year and a purity of awe in the behavioral programming of creatures as they make precise choices in the scant hours they have to live and reproduce. He scrutinizes the bog alder and beaked hazel, the phoebe, woodcock and sapsucker (many captured in his elegant line drawings), and blends those observations with discussionsof large phenomena: the movement of constellations, photoperiods, biological and circadian clocks. As with the author's Winter World (2003), Heinrich presents natural science at its engaging best. Agent: Sandra Dijkstra/Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency
From the Publisher
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
“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
“One of our greatest living naturalists...Heinrich, author of 15 marvelous, mind-altering books…is a national treasure.” — Los Angeles Times
“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
“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
“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
Seattle Times
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.’
Anthony Doerr
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.
New York Times Book Review
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.
Edward O. Wilson
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.
Amy Tan
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.
Bill McKibben
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!
|Los Angeles Times
One of our greatest living naturalists...Heinrich, author of 15 marvelous, mind-altering books…is a national treasure.
Los Angeles Times
One of our greatest living naturalists...Heinrich, author of 15 marvelous, mind-altering books…is a national treasure.
JUNE 2009 - AudioFile
Bernd Heinrich has astonishing powers of observation. In great detail, the awakening of summer in the natural world in New England is described—the migrations, mating, budding, metamorphoses from tadpole to frog, and multiple other transformations taking place in our backyards. Mel Foster's deep voice is clear, and his pacing is accurate. But this is the season of bounty and wonder and joy—Foster's reading is too inexpressive for that. Heinrich conducts backyard experiments to figure out whether flower blooms stay open due to light or warmth and tempts fate with hornets, resulting in an unfortunate but predictable outcome. Foster may be able to effectively translate Heinrich's ecological concerns for the future, but he’s less successful with Heinrich's almost-boyish enthusiasm. A.B. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine