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The Butterfly Season

On Beginnings, Endings, and the Life in Between

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The Butterfly Season

Written by: Lea Korsgaard, Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg - translator
Narrated by: Ela Lee
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The phenomenal Danish bestseller: a transporting, inspirational story of home, of endings, rebirth and new beginnings

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?

© Lea Korsgaard 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 Biological Sciences Customs & Traditions Europe Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Philosophy Science Social Sciences
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Critic Reviews

Korsgaard's observations are deeply rendered and passionate
Butterflies are a dream subject because they are so enmeshed in human history and culture. Even so , what might appear a slender piece of whimsy is enlarged by Korsgaard into a wonderfully clear and insightful history of the ideas that have pinned us in a planetary extinction crisis... Korsgaard's burgeoning connection with the natural world is inspiring... Ecstatic (Patrick Barkham)
Korsgaard's record of tracking 64 species of butterfly in her native Denmark across one summer is part nature-cure memoir, part historical study into our fascination with these beguiling insects. On her travels around the country, she comes across the small tortoiseshells that appeared at profound moments in her mother's life, exploring butterflies as symbols for death and rebirth. The author also aligns herself with fellow butterfly hunters throughout history, such as Margaret Fountaine and Vladimir Nabokov
Danish journalist Lea Korsgaard catches the bug and makes a new year resolution – to track down all the 65 native species of butterfly in a single summer... As the summer advances and her count grows so does her obsession. She's immersed in the butterfly's grand mythology, in its symbology of transformation and rebirth, and in the lepidopterist community (Anne Haverty)
Korsgaard's search is not merely to record the physical specimens in Denmark (lamentably fewer than in past times), but to find out what butterflies mean
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
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!)
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
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
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