The Undiscovered Country

“The valiant and imaginative nature writing of John Hay is one of the most enriching contributions to sentient life on our planet that an American has made in our time. Here, his creative force is at its best; the pages on the shrew, alone, would be enough to justify the purchase of the book. If all humanity were to read Mr. Hay’s work, it is not unlikely that Darwin and St. Francis of Assisi would come back to life and join hands.” ―James Dickey

Through the distillation of a lifetime of experiences, John Hay describes in The Undiscovered Country his quiet, profound search for our place in the natural world. In considering snails, alewives, terns, woodland moths, and other forms of natural life, Hay shares with his readers a discovery that few have experienced and no one has written about so eloquently. The sensitivity and poetic beauty of John Hay’s writing will come as no surprise to the readers of The Run, The Great Beach (winner of the John Burroughs award), and the other books for which he is recognized as one of our finest naturalist writers.