The Pine Barrens

“It will be a long time before another book appears to equal the literary quality and human compassion of this one.” —The New York Times Book Review

Most people think of New Jersey as a suburban-industrial corridor that runs between New York and Philadelphia. Yet in the low center of the state is a near wilderness, larger than most national parks, which has been known since the seventeenth century as the Pine Barrens.

The term refers to the predominant trees in the vast forests that cover the...