NATURAL HISTORY & ENVIRONMENTALISM
Take a wander through a hand-picked selection from our Natural History section.
Budding naturalists will likely find inspiration in the writings of Robert Macfarlane and Kathleen Jamie. Those looking to expand their understanding of the climate crisis may be interested in the writing of Greta Thunberg and Rachel Carson. Whereas those keen to engage with other lifeforms will be drawn towards the radical worlds of Timothy Morton and Merlin Sheldrake.
Is a River Alive?
Robert Macfarlane
Clearing the Air
Hannah Ritchie
The Sound of Many Waters
Robin A. Crawford
Sno
Sverker Sörlin
Winter
Val McDermid
A Year with Gilbert White
Jenny Uglow
Night Life
John Lewis-Stempel
The Green Ages
Annette Kehnel
Drifting North
Dominic Hinde
The Golden Mole
Katherine Rundell
Weather Almanac 2026
Zoë Johnson
The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2026
Lia Leendertz
Our Oaken Bones
Merlin Hanbury-Tenison
Homeward Bound
Hamza Yassin
In the Hide
Gordon Buchanan
Night Vision
Jean Sprackland
Ocean
David Attenborough and Colin Butfield
Uncommon Ground
Patrick Galbraith
The Kindest Garden
Marian Boswall and Jason Ingram
Our Story
Colin Butfield and Jonnie Hughes
Anima
Kapka Kassabova
The Lie of the Land
Guy Shrubsole
A Barrister for the Earth
Monica Feria-Tinta
Lifelines
Julian Hoffman
Life on a Little-Known Planet
Elizabeth Kolbert
Renaturing
James Canton
The Intersectional Environmentalist
Leah Thomas
Natural Connection
Joycelyn Longdon
Nature’s Ghosts
Sophie Yeo
The Burning Earth
Sunil Amrith
Dwell
Simon Armitage
Dusk
Robbie Arnott and Susan Gates
Spring is the Only Season
Simon Barnes
Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind
Richard Fortey
Intertidal
Yuvan Aves
Just Earth
Tony Juniper
The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything
Peter Brannen
We Will Not Be Saved
Nemonte Nenquimo
White Light
Jack Lohmann
Outdoor Tracking Handbook
Ray Mears
The Spring Pond
Miriam Darlington
To the Eel Island
Dr. Charles Moseley
Hedgelands
Christopher Hart
Human Nature
Kate Marvel
A Mudlarking Year
Lara Maiklem
Seven Rivers
Vanessa Taylor
Understorey
Anna Chapman Parker
Wild Woman
Philippa Forrester
Black Climates
Selina Nwulu
The Lost Flock
Jane Cooper
Pathless Forest
Chris Thorogood
Robert Burns - Nature Poems
Robert Burns
The Rolling Year
Hannah French
The Wild Places
Robert Macfarlane
The Arrogant Ape
Christine Webb
A Climate of Truth
Mike Berners-Lee
Enchanted Ground
Steven Lovatt
The End
Joel Wainwright
Flowers for Elephants
Peter Martell
Going Nuclear
Tim Gregory
Here Comes the Sun
Bill McKibben
Looking Down at the Stars
Christina Riley
The Many Lives of James Lovelock
Jonathan Watts
The North Pole
Erling Kagge
The Shetland Way
Marianne Brown
The Next Crisis
Danny Dorling
Tigers Between Empires
Jonathan C. Slaght
Wild by Design
Laura J. Martin
Wild Thing
Randal Plunkett
A Love Story from the End of the World
Juhea Kim
Nature Needs You
Hannah Bourne-Taylor
The Path of Light
Anthony Seldon
The Rising Down
Alexandra Harris
The Spirit of the Rainforest
Dr Rosa Vásquez Espinoza
Surviving the 21st Century
Noam Chomsky, José Mujica and Saúl Alvídrez
Three Rivers
Robert Winder
The Autumn Valley
Miriam Darlington
Close to Home
Thor Hanson
Menagerie Manor
Gerald Durrell
Metamorphosis
Oren Harman
The New Breadline
Jean-Martin Bauer
New Wild Order
Andy Hamilton
Science Under Siege
Michael Mann and Peter Hotez
Stone Lands
Fiona Robertson
Storm Pegs
Jen Hadfield
An Unnatural History of Britain
Kevin Parr
What the Wild Sea Can Be
Helen Scales
Birdland
Jon Gower
Bothy
Kat Hill
The City of Today is a Dying Thing
Des Fitzgerald
The Cove
Beth Lynch
Cull of the Wild
Hugh Warwick
The Genius of Trees
Harriet Rix
The Heat and the Fury
Peter Schwartzstein
The Hidden Globe
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
The Long Heat
Andreas Malm and Wim Carton
Marston Meadows
John Fuller
A Bookseller Recommends...
A Year with Gilbert White
Jenny Uglow
Uglow illuminates Gilbert White, a quirky, warm-hearted man, 'the father of ecology', by following a single year in his Naturalist's Journal. As his diary jumps from topic to topic, she accompanies Gilbert from frost to summer drought, from the migration of birds to the sex lives of snails and the coming of harvest.
Fresh, alive and original - and packed with rich colour illustrations - A Year with Gilbert White invites us to see the natural world anew, with astonishment and wonder.
A Bookseller Recommends...
Is A River Alive?
Robert Macfarlane
"A book that feels like plunging into a cool spring. When you emerge, Macfarlane will have completely changed your understanding of rivers, what it means to be ‘alive’, and the way we speak of and defend the natural world. I’ve read nothing like this since Underland; this is the kind of book that will rejig your brain and inspire you to action."
~ Tom, Edinburgh
A Bookseller Recommends...
Bird School
Adam Nicolson
"A charming foray into the world of birdwatching by an equally charming author."
~ Tom, Edinburgh
A Bookseller Recommends...
A Wildflower Year
Frances Tophill
Throughout the year, Gardeners' World presenter Frances Tophill has collected and documented 60 beautiful wildflowers. For each species, she eloquently describes its importance and unique features, as well as their habitat, when they can be found, and what other species you might expect to find nearby. She also explains whether they are edible and their possible medicinal uses.
Entangled Life
Merlin Sheldrake
Arboretum
Wildwood
Roger Deakin
The Mushroom at the End of the World
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Sitopia
Carolyn Steel
Secrets of a Devon Wood
Jo Brown
Field Work
Bella Bathurst
The Cabaret of Plants
Richard Mabey
Why Women Grow
Alice Vincent
Wild
Noel Kingsbury and Claire Takacs
Planting the Natural Garden
Henk Gerritsen and Piet Oudolf
The Trials of Life
David Attenborough
Underland
Robert Macfarlane
The Instant
Amy Liptrot
A Line Above the Sky
Helen Mort
Next to Nature
Ronald Blythe
Diary of a Young Naturalist
Dara McAnulty
Living Planet
David Attenborough
