Wild Delicate Seconds: 29 Wildlife Encounters

In twenty-nine micro-essays that are almost prose poems, Charles Finn captures chance encounters with the everyday—and not so everyday—animals, birds, and insects of North America.

There is no adrenaline here, there are no maulings or fantastic escapes—only stillness and attentiveness to beauty. With profundity, humor, grace, simplicity and compassion, Finn pays homage to the creatures that share our world—from black bears to bumble bees, mountain lions to muskrats—and, in doing so, touches on what it means to be human.

Wild Delicate Seconds will appeal to wildlife observers and naturalists, as well as to readers of American nature writers such as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Annie Dillard, and Mary Oliver.