This book is the first I've ever read by McPhee after hearing him speak on a NPR story. His ability to use a spectrum of individual human stories balanced with extreme macro scale comprehension of complex natural systems is a masterful thing to enjoy as a reader and makes the pages fly by as if you are along side him experiencing and meeting his subjects. Being someone who works largely in documentary film and loves exploring nature, McPhee is now my must have author on my bookshelf (iBook).