Microcosmos

This book offers an extraordinarily unique look at our daily environment from a bug’s eye view. Through macrophotography and macrocinematography the infinitesimal take on mythic proportions.

A companion volume to the Miramax documentary of the same name, Microcosmos is “a natural fairy tale,” an insect’s-eye view of the world. The text tends toward the poetic and metaphorical, likening the ripening of a cocoon to computer assembly language, examining the flight patterns of mosquitoes, veering into discussions of why it is that flowers are beautiful. (The French authors have a wonderful answer: “Flowers are beautiful quite simply to seduce insects.”) The book’s greatest strength is in its superb photographs, which capture the minutest details of an insect’s wanderings.