Notizen aus dem Sommerhaus

The renovation of an old Swedish summer house becomes a wonderful exploration of nature, life, and philosophy.

I took a walk through the garden. A great tit was singing above a patch of coltsfoot. I felt that a thousand discoveries were waiting for me. "Notes from the Summer House" by Nina Burton is a beautifully written memoir about the time the Swedish writer and essayist Nina Burton spent renovating an old summer house and the animals she encountered during her stay. Throughout the house and the surrounding garden, she meets a variety of animals: ants, bees, foxes, squirrels, blackbirds, badgers, pigeons, deer, and many more. They have all made the summer house and the garden their home and inspire Nina to reflect on their role in our world. Did you know that there are more ants in total than the number of seconds that have passed since the Big Bang? And that their ant cities can be larger than London or New York when scaled to human proportions? Or that the migratory instinct of migratory birds is so strong that an injured stork, which escaped captivity, was found six weeks later after walking 150 kilometers and following the migration path of its flock on foot? What begins with the renovation of an old summer house evolves into a wonderful exploration of nature, life, and philosophy, in which Nina Burton reveals the inner lives and previously unknown habits of the animals she lives alongside.