Nature belongs to everyone—but for too long, access to the natural world and nature writing has been shaped by privilege. Many voices have been overlooked, and the sense of belonging in outdoor spaces has not been universal. Fortunately, a new wave of writers is bringing fresh perspectives to the genre, exploring themes of identity, migration, colonialism, and climate justice through the lens of nature.
In celebration of diversity in nature writing, we’ve curated a list of eight must-read books by authors whose stories challenge traditional narratives. These books offer a powerful mix of memoir, ecology, conservation, poetry, or even just offering up a different perspective, proving that the natural world is for everyone. From reflections on home and heritage to meditations on mental health and the environment, these works highlight the richness of perspectives shaping the future of nature writing.
Whether you’re passionate about the environment, social justice, or simply love beautifully crafted storytelling, these books deserve a place on your reading list.
Belonging, Amanda Thomson
Reflecting on family, identity and nature, Belonging is a personal memoir about what it is to have and make a home. It is a love letter to nature, especially the northern landscapes of Scotland and the Scots pinewoods of Abernethy – home to standing dead trees known as snags, which support the overall health of the forest.
Belonging is a book about how we are held in thrall to elements of our past. It speaks to the importance of attention and reflection, and will encourage us all to look and observe and ask questions of ourselves.
Beautifully written and featuring Amanda Thomson’s artwork and photography throughout, it explores how place, language and family shape us and make us who we are. Beautifully written, Amanda’s very personal history interweaves ideas of family, place, history and nature. It was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2023.
Late Light, Michael Malay
Late Light is the story of Michael Malay’s own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines. Mixing natural history with memoir, this book explores the mystery of our animal neighbours, in all their richness and variety. It is about the wonder these animals inspired in our ancestors, the hope they inspire in us, and the joy they might still hold for our children.
Late Light is about migration, belonging and extinction. Through the close examination of four particular ‘unloved’ animals – eels, moths, crickets and mussels – Michael Malay tells the story of the economic, political and cultural events that have shaped the modern landscape of Britain.
Winner of the 2024 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing, Late Light is a rich blend of memoir, natural history, nature writing, and a meditation on being and belonging, from a vibrant new voice. Michael brings the refreshing perspective of someone who goes from seeing England as a foreign place to someone who deeply studies its secret wonders.
Two Trees Make a Forest, Jessica J Lee
“I have learned many words for ‘island’: isle, atoll, eyot, islet, or skerry. They exist in archipelagos or alone, and always, by definition, I have understood them by their relation to water. But the Chinese word for island knows nothing of water. For a civilisation grown inland from the sea, the vastness of mountains was a better analogue: (dao, ‘island’) built from the relationship between earth and sky.”
Between tectonic plates and conflicting cultures, Taiwan is an island of extremes: high mountains, exposed flatlands, thick forests. After unearthing a hidden memoir of her grandfather’s life, written on the cusp of his total memory loss, Jessica J Lee hunts his story, in parallel with exploring Taiwan, hoping to understand the quakes that brought her family from China, to Taiwan and Canada, and the ways in which our human stories are interlaced with geographical forces. Part-nature writing, part-biography, Two Trees Make a Forest traces the natural and human stories that shaped an island and a family.
Tender, poignant and a finely faceted meditation on memory, love, landscape, this is a beautiful book about the distance between people and between places, and the means of their bridging.
The Home Place, J. Drew Lanham
“In me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. All of these hues are me; I am, in the deepest sense, colored.”
From these fertile soils of love, land, identity, family, and race emerges The Home Place, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist and professor of ecology J. Drew Lanham.
Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina—a place “easy to pass by on the way somewhere else”—has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be “the rare bird, the oddity.”
By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South—and in America today.
Twelve Words for Moss, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett
Glowflake, Rocket, Small Skies, Kind Spears, Marilyn… Moss is known as the living carpet but if you look really closely, it contains its own irrepressible light.
In Twelve Words for Moss, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett celebrates the unsung hero of the plant world with a unique blend of poetry, nature writing and memoir.
Making her way through wetlands from Somerset to County Tyrone, Burnett discovers the hidden vibrancy and luminous beauty of these overlooked places. She also takes strength from them as she recovers from her grief at her father’s death. As she meditates on and renames her favourite species of moss, she finds a healing power in language, and draws inspiration from the resilience and tenacity of her plant – and human – friends.
Shining a light on the unsung hero of the plant word, Burnett’s beautiful volume blends poetry, memoir and natural history to reflect on both the different varieties of moss and the healing power of language.
Be a Birder, Hamza Yassin
Journey along with Hamza as he recounts stories of his birdwatching adventures and shares tips and tricks in this beautifully illustrated guide for beginning birders. With practical advice and personal anecdotes, you will learn how to get started in birdwatching and hone your identification skills to become an experienced twitcher.
Whether you need a companion on your next expedition or simply wish to dip in and out as you learn more, Be a Birder is fit for every purpose, and encourages us all to discover the joy of birdwatching. Inside you will learn how to quickly identify birds, what different bird behaviour means, the most useful birding equipment to take and the best places to see the most exciting birds, wherever you are.
The much-loved wildlife cameraman and winner of Strictly Come Dancing makes the perfect companion in this fascinating guide to birdwatching, which touches on all areas of ornithology and twitching.
It’s Not Just You, Tori Tsui
The term ‘eco-anxiety’ has been popularised as a way to talk about the negative impact of the climate emergency on our wellbeing. In It’s Not Just You, activist Tori Tsui reframes eco-anxiety as the urgent mental health crisis it clearly is.
Drawing on the wisdom of environmental advocates from around the globe, Tori looks to those on the frontlines of eco-activism to demonstrate that the current climate-related mental health struggle goes beyond the climate itself. Instead, it is a struggle that encompasses many injustices and is deeply entrenched in systems such as racism, sexism, ableism and, above all, capitalism.
Because of this, climate injustice disproportionately affects most marginalised communities, who are often excluded from narratives on mental health. Tori argues that we can only begin to tackle both the climate and mental health crisis by diversifying our perspectives and prioritising community-led practices. In essence, reminding us that It’s Not Just You.
Tackling this increasingly urgent crisis requires looking both inwards and outwards, embracing individuality over individualism and championing climate justice. Only then can we start to build better futures for both people and the planet.
Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation 2024, this book is like a breath of fresh air, delving into mental health and its connections with the planetary emergency. Hopeful and urgent, this is a pivotal read for the most pressing emergency of our time.
Uprooting, Marchelle Farrell
What is home? It’s a question that has troubled Marchelle Farrell for her entire life. Years ago she left Trinidad and now, uprooted once again, she heads to the peaceful English countryside – the only Black woman in her village.
Drawn to her new garden, Marchelle begins to examine the complex and emotional question of home in the context of colonialism. As her relationship with the garden deepens, she discovers that her two conflicting identities are far more intertwined than she had realised. Full of hope and healing, Uprooting is a book about finding home where we least expect it, and which invites us to reconnect to the land – and ourselves.
Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize in 2023, this is a beautiful memoir that shows how gardens can be a place to plant our most troubled feelings, to put down roots and to find peace. Tender and raw, the power of Farrell’s prose, her skilful observation and her uncanny ability to weave together science and spirituality comes alive.