Gathering Moss

Mosses grow almost everywhere, yet most people never look closely at them. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a scientist, mother, teacher and writer of Native American heritage, spends this book looking at them closely, and asks the reader to do the same.

The book is non-fiction, built as a series of linked personal essays. Kimmerer explains the biology of mosses: how they live, and how their lives connect with those of many other organisms. The science is set out clearly and for a general reader, though scientists will find it useful too.

Each essay pairs that science with reflection. Kimmerer tells the stories of mosses in scientific terms and also through indigenous ways of knowing, so that natural history and cultural relationships sit side by side. Mosses come to stand for ways of living in the world, and the author asks what such small, simple lives have to teach.

Reading it is a quiet, observant experience, closer to a walk with a naturalist than to a textbook. It suits anyone curious about the small living things underfoot, and anyone who likes science writing that speaks in a personal voice.