With mortality on his mind after serious heart surgery, Stutz, former editor-in-chief of Natural History
magazine, needed physical and emotional renewal. He found both during the odyssey chronicled in this loquacious account of "seeing spring in various phases." For three months starting in March and ending in June—all the while exulting in the energy of spring, in its lengthening days and blossoming landscapes—he traveled east to west and south to north in a 20-year-old Chevy Impala sedan stuffed with camping gear. Stutz tracked salamanders and frogs across reawakening forest floors, watched cacti bloom in the Arizona desert, followed birds as they migrated northward, harvested morels in Montana and Oregon, and capped his restorative, philosophical trek by hiking through Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge during the bright 24-hour solstice days that herald the transition of spring into summer. Along the way, the author expresses concerns: climate change means that spring is arriving as much as a week earlier across the continent, disrupting migration patterns, and most of the world's midlatitude glaciers are melting with unanticipated speed. Spring remains the season of rebirth, says Stutz—but his amiable report cautions readers to "see it now, because it's changing." (Jan.)
