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The Butterfly Season
  • Published: 8 September 2026
  • ISBN: 9780241810521
  • Imprint: Particular Books
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $49.99
Categories:

The Butterfly Season

On Beginnings, Endings, and the Life in Between

Formats & editions
Hardback
8 Sept 2026
EBook
4 June 2026
Audiobook
4 June 2026
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A bestselling phenomenon in the author’s native Denmark – a story of home, of endings and beginnings, of rebirth and, of course, butterflies

In the darkness of winter on the first day of the year, a woman in Denmark is making a list. She plans to set out and see all of the country's butterfly species in a single summer. She knows nothing about butterflies. She doesn’t even know why she wants to see them. She just knows that something is calling her. The pull is irresistible.

The Butterfly Season tells the story of what happened next. We follow Lea Korsgaard as her list takes her to landscapes she never knew existed, shaped by the wind and by the sea. She discovers secret places and meets strangers who help along the way. And she is led into the past: into the lives of her ancestors and the worlds of philosophy and myth. Because ever since ancient times, the butterfly has symbolized humanity’s hope of rebirth—and confronted us with the biggest questions of existence: why do we live? And what are we living for?
  • Published: 8 September 2026
  • ISBN: 9780241810521
  • Imprint: Particular Books
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $49.99
Categories:

Praise for The Butterfly Season

An important and wonderful book about the hunt for Denmark’s 64 different butterflies … Read these 314 pages and your view of the world will never be the same

Jyllands-Posten

One of those books that makes the world richer

Kristeligt Dagblad

Detailed, sensory, precise ... Korsgaard has a childlike enthusiasm, and it is contagious. When she describes her hunt for butterflies, it’s almost like reading a crime novel (it’s strangely exciting to see if she finds them!). But it’s also like reading a love story (it’s strangely moving when she does!)

Politiken

Lea Korsgaard’s tantalizing butterfly annals turn disciplined insect hunting into a meditation on existence … The Butterfly Season is illustrated throughout with the author’s own fine butterfly drawings ... It is an excellent and extremely well-composed book ... first-class literary journalism

Weekendavisen

The Butterfly Season is a book about chasing butterflies, but it’s just as much a book about the meaning of life ... Lea Korsgaard re-enchants the world

Information

Lea Korsgaard’s account of her inner and outer journeys becomes one of those books that makes the world a little bigger. Even when it’s about the smallest of things

Berlingske

The book manages to combine nature writing, personal development, and existential reflection in a way that speaks to both the head and the heart. It invites the reader to see the world—and the butterflies in it—with renewed awareness and wonder

The Danish Libraries

The Butterfly Season is an inspiring love letter to the magic of the natural world, in all its beauty and complexity and joy—an intimate encounter with the mysteries of nature and of life, and an unforgettable reminder that wonder reawakens the heart

Amy Tan, No.1 New York Times bestselling author of The Backyard Bird Chronicles