For nearly forty years, Chet Raymo has walked a one mile path from his house in North Easton, Massachusetts, to the Stonehill College campus where he has taught physics and astronomy. The woods, meadows, and stream he passes are as familiar to him as his own backyard, yet each day he finds something new. "Every pebble and wildflower has a story to tell," Raymo says.

In The Path, Raymo chronicles the universe he has found by closely observing every detail of this route. He connects the local to the global, the microscopic to the galactic, with a scientist's curiosity, a historian's respect for the past, and a child's capacity for wonder. With each step, the landscape he traverses becomes richer and more multidimensional, opening door after door into astronomy, geology, biology, history and literature.