Alongside his work at The Times, where he writes across news, environment and culture, Henry is a passionate advocate for slowing down, paying attention and finding wonder in the everyday. Whether reflecting on the silence of a summer heatwave, the call of a wood pigeon, or the transformative power of a great book, his writing reminds us that nature is never just a backdrop – it’s part of who we are.
We caught up with Henry ahead of this year’s campaign to talk about the books that have shaped him, why nature stories matter more than ever, and what he’s most looking forward to as Host of the 2026 Wainwright Prize.
What first sparked your love of nature, and has that relationship changed over time?
I was the sort of child who, whenever I found something that had died in our garden (a bee, a mouse, a butterfly, on a couple of occasions a frog), would make space in the flowerbed for a small plot and hold a mini funeral. Dried leaves placed upright into the soil made for excellent headstones, and flower petals for decoration. It was a proper cemetery out there. While I struggle to point to a single lightning rod moment, I think I always felt a strong sensitivity towards nature.
Nature writing has the power to change how we see the world. Is there a book that’s stayed with you long after you’ve finished reading it, and why?
I recently read Richard Powers’ The Overstory, albeit criminally late to the party (it was published in 2018 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year). For the uninitiated, it’s a sprawling epic about a group of strangers, all of whom have their own distinct connection to trees and a specific reason for caring for them, who join forces to prevent the destruction of old-growth forests.
It’s a monumental novel, one in which its arboreal characters are imbued with just as much life as its human ones. At over 600 pages, Powers never seems to run out of ways to provide us with a new perspective on the life of trees, nor does he exhaust the reader’s capacity for awe, grief, intrigue and righteous anger. Without wishing to sound too glib, the world around me felt genuinely larger for having read it, as did my belief in people having a larger, collective purpose.
As host of the 2026 Wainwright Prize, what are you most looking forward to?
Although it’s still a couple of months away, I’m already thrilled about the prospect of spending the day in the company of some of the country’s finest nature and conservation writers. Having been a judge for last year’s event and having had the opportunity to sit around discussing their tremendous work, this year I fully intend to abuse my position as host and spend the day peppering them with all manner of annoying questions.
You spend your days surrounded by news and current affairs. Why do you think stories about nature still matter so much today?
As I write, it’s approaching a terrifying 37 °C in London. I was sitting outside this morning, doing my usual scan of the day’s headlines, and I suddenly became rudely aware of the silence that enveloped me. No birdsong, no insects, not even a rustle in the bushes. Everything was silent.
Understandably, the majority of news stories were focused on the dangerous toll that the heatwave was taking on the lives of people across Europe. But that silence felt like a cry for help from nature, about which there were noticeably few headlines. Continuing to tell stories about nature, whatever form they take, reminds us of its immeasurable beauty and vital role in all our lives.
If you could encourage everyone to spend just one hour outdoors this weekend, how would you suggest they spend it?
There’s a passage in Noticing: Intimate Encounters with the Natural World, an upcoming book by the American writer Richard Louv, in which he references the phrase “a storm of noticing”. For context, he’s describing the reaction of a woman he met while taking part in the Japanese practice of shinrun-yoku, known in English as ‘forest-bathing’.
Venturing outdoors, slowing down and allowing yourself to absorb the sheer variety of nature you have around you (literally – many tree species release phytoncides, organic compounds which help to reduce stress) is an invaluable way to afford yourself some perspective, revive your senses and remind yourself of your place in the natural order of things.
What do you hope readers will discover in this year’s longlist?
That nature writing, far from being one homogenous genre, is one of the most thematically diverse categories of literature out there at the moment.
Which species, landscape or season never fails to stop you in your tracks?
I owe this one to my grandma. Whenever we were together, she would always make a point of stopping our conversation when she heard the rhythmic, lightly muffled call of a wood pigeon somewhere nearby. She would wait for him to finish his call, then remark upon how melodious it sounded. She passed away earlier this year; now every time I hear a wood pigeon, I take a moment to stop and simply listen.
What’s giving you hope for nature right now?
I don’t mind telling you that I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in something of a doomspiral, a predicament that I’m sure many people who follow climate and nature news closely will be familiar with.
But as the spiral threatened to descend further, I interviewed a father and son duo – Robin and Merlin Hanbury-Tenison – who were undertaking an epic 100-mile waterbike journey down the Thames to raise money for Europe’s first temperate rainforest research station. The pair are at the forefront of a burgeoning movement to expand the UK’s temperate rainforest, less than one per cent of which remains of its historic range.
Engaging with and being inspired by people like this – people who are fighting uphill battles in order to improve the natural world – is a vital catalyst for both hope and action.