John Seibert Farnsworth’s delightful field notes are not only about nature, but from nature as well. In Nature Beyond Solitude, he lets us peer over his shoulder as he takes his notes. We follow him to a series of field stations where he teams up with scientists, citizen scientists, rangers, stewards, and grad students engaged in long-term ecological study, all the while scribbling down what he sees, hears, and feels in the moment. With humor and insight, Farnsworth explores how communal experiences of nature might ultimately provide greater depths of appreciation for the natural world.

In the course of his travels, Farnsworth visits the Hastings Natural History Reservation, the Santa Cruz Island Reserve, the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, the North Cascades Institute’s Environmental Learning Center, and more.