Name: Megan Parrott's review of Unseen City by Nathanael Johnson
Item: Unseen City
Rating: 4
Author: Megan Parrott

Nathanael Johnson

It all started with Nathanael Johnson's decision to teach his daughter, Josephine, the names of every tree they passed as they walked up the hill to daycare in San Francisco, CA. it was a ridiculous project, not just because she couldn't even say the word "tree" yet, but also because he couldn't name a single one of them. When confronted with the futility of his mission, his instinctive response was to expand it, Don Quixote-style, until its audacity obscured its stupidity. And so the project expanded to include an expertise in city-dwelling birds (the raptors, the shockingly shrewd crows, the gulls, the misunderstood pigeons), rodents (raccoons, rats, squirrels), and tiny crawling things (the superpowers of snails, the vast intercontinental warfare of ants). There's an unseen world all around us. There are wonders that we walk past every day without noticing. Johnson has written a book that will widen the pinhole through which we see the world. What does the world look like through the eyes of a peregrine falcon, or a raccoon, or an ant? What does a sidewalk Gingko balboa "see?" What would you learn each morning if you understood how to speak pigeon? If we look closely enough, Johnson believes that the walk to the subway can be just as entrancing as a walk through the forest. Follow along as the author and his family search for the beauty and meaning of nature in an urban jungle.

The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness

Unseen City

Piet Terheyden

Sebastian Stockmarr

Megan Parrott

I read this book after hearing Nathanael Johnson on 99 Percent Invisible – and it certainly lived up to Roman Mars' hype. It's a wonderful, quick read for anyone who wants an intro into nature writing and I think it could be a great tool for parents to help their kids see what's all around us. 

The big takeaway is to notice the wonders we walk past every day, that perhaps this sentiment will help us become more realistic in our approach to environmental protection – and up our sense of wonder to boot! 

This passage from the conclusion sums it up well: "If we come to love nature not only when it is rare and beautiful, but also when it is commonplace and even annoying, I believe it will heal the great would if our species: our self-imposed isolation from the rest of life, our loneliness for nature. We might remember that we are no different from our surroundings, that the trees and birds are as much our neighbors as other humans. We might remember that before the land belonged to us, we belonged to it. We could belong again."

Kyla MacDonald 

I thoroughly enjoyed myself while reading this. It’s such an approachable book for various readers. It does exactly what it sets out to do, reinvigorate (or enhance) interest in the natural world. I wish there was more entries. 

It all started with Nathanael Johnson’s decision to teach his daughter the name of every tree they passed on their walk to day care in San Francisco. This project turned into a quest to discover the secrets of the neighborhood’s flora and fauna, and yielded more than names and trivia: Johnson developed a relationship with his nonhuman neighbors. Johnson argues that learning to see the world afresh, like a child, shifts the way we think about nature: Instead of something distant and abstract, nature becomes real—all at once comical, annoying, and beautiful. This shift can add tremendous value to our lives, and it might just be the first step in saving the world. No matter where we live—city, country, oceanside, or mountains—there are wonders that we walk past every day. Unseen City widens the pinhole of our perspective by allowing us to view the world from the high-altitude eyes of a turkey vulture and the distinctly low-altitude eyes of a snail. The narrative allows us to eavesdrop on the comically frenetic life of a squirrel and peer deep into the past with a ginkgo biloba tree. Each of these organisms has something unique to tell us about our neighborhoods and, chapter by chapter, Unseen City takes us on a journey that is part nature lesson and part love letter to the world’s urban jungles. With the right perspective, a walk to the subway can be every bit as entrancing as a walk through a national park.

The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urba n Wilderness

Eye opening – adding wonder to all the small pieces of nature living alongside us in cities.

I've lived in cities all my life and have only recently "discovered" the great outdoors. Though I'm fairly content with the idea of continuing my life in a city, I often miss being in nature and not feeling like a foreign object in a concrete landscape. Unseen City made me see just how much nature actually is present in our cities if you just start looking for it. Can't recommended it enough. Pigeons rule.

Piet Terheyden &
Unseen City by Nathanael Johnson

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Piet Terheyden &Unseen City by Nathanael Johnson

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Piet Terheyden &
Unseen City by Nathanael Johnson