Nature writing - any fellow fans?

[Crazzzycat]

I’ve been hanging around on the “what we’re reading” part of the site for a while, but don’t see many mentions of non-fiction. That got me thinking...I can’t be the only one who enjoys a good bit of nature/ natural history writing, can I?

So, I’m starting this thread to share what nature books I’ve read this year.
Does anyone wants to join me? Also if anyone has recommendations of great nature writing, or books to avoid, feel free to share!

What I’ve read so far:

1. Tide: The Science and Lore of the Greatest Force on Earth by Hugh Aldersley Williams

Part social science, part natural history, I LOVED this book for the breath of topics it covered. I’m not sure why it started with possibly the most tedious chapter ever written (an in-depth description of someone watching a full tidal cycle), but the rest of the book more than made it for it.

2. The genius of birds by Jennifer Ackerman

This should have been an interesting book on an interesting subject, but a bit too heavy on the science for me. The frequent mentions of experiments on birds also put my off.

Currently reading:

3. Curlew Moon by Mary Colwell
4. The Sea is Not Made of Water by Adam Nicolson

I like nature writing. I’ve recently enjoyed:

The Most Perfect Thing by Tim Birkhead
Surfacing by Katherine Jamie (also recommend her earlier books)
Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith - this is really more popular science.

I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who enjoys a bit of nature writing 😅

Those books all look really interesting @IceandIndigo and I don’t think I’ve come across them before. Thanks for sharing!

Off the top of my head:

Old now, but wonderful: H Is For Hawk, Helen Macdonald
Finding the Mother Tree, Suzanne Simard
The Seaweed Collector's Handbook, Miek Zwamborn
Also old, but delightful: Corvus: A Life with Birds, Esther Woolfson
Not exactly nature, but sort of, Adrift: A Secret Life of London's Waterways, Helen Babbs The author and partner live on a canal boat. There is some nice nature writing but also interesting stuff about London's waterways, currently and in history.

I just read The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

I really disliked H is for Hawk, I feel like I’m the only one.

Dara McNulty’s Diary of a Young Naturalist comes highly recommended. I also liked Helen McDonald’s H is for Hawk, but haven’t yet read her Vesper Flights, and I love almost anything by Robert McFarlane, especially The Old Ways and Underland. Tim Dee’s Landfill about urban gulls. Farley and Roberts’ Edgelands about nature on the edges of cities.

@IceandIndigo

I really disliked H is for Hawk, I feel like I’m the only one.

What was it you disliked?

There are some wonderful essays in Vesper Flights.

@InisnaBro there were a number of things. I found the author really self-indulgent and found I didn’t want to spend time with her. I realised I don’t really agree with falconry on animal welfare grounds. I also didn’t really see the point of all the stuff about T.H White.

I have Robert McFarlane’s Underland on my TBR pile. I really liked The Old Ways.

So many books I’ve never even heard of. I guess my local Waterstones doesn’t have the most extensive selection…

I just ordered that Corvus book @IntermittentParps. I’ve been fascinated by the crow family, ever since two of them followed me down a hill last year. Obviously they fly much quicker than I can walk, so to keep to the same pace they flew in a perfectly coordinated zigzag pattern, crossing above my head every 15 seconds or so. It was a fascinating display of aerial acrobatics that lasted for a good few minutes, until I made it down the hill.

I read A shadow above by Joe Shute last year, which is about the rapid decline in raven numbers and the recent reversal of that trend. That also touches on the intelligence of those birds, their social structure, and how people have long been fascinated by them - going all the way back to the Bronze Age.

[quote IceandIndigo]@InisnaBro there were a number of things. I found the author really self-indulgent and found I didn’t want to spend time with her. I realised I don’t really agree with falconry on animal welfare grounds. I also didn’t really see the point of all the stuff about T.H White.[/quote]
I think she just identified with T.H White and his love of goshawks/attempts to work with one.

Crazzzycat, I hope you like Corvus!

I like some nature writing too. I did like H is for Hawk (sorry Indigo!,) but can see how people might find this style self indulgent. Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowatt is both interesting and funny (about a biologist studying wolves in the Canadian Arctic). Following for suggestions. I have a few of Helen Scale's on my TBR pile.

Never Cry Wolf sounds good.

I love Tom Cox's nature writing, Ring The Hill and 20th Century Yokel. His smaller book, Notebook, too.
Featherhood by Charlie Gilmour is beautiful, but more autobiographical. The power of nature to heal really shines through.

Never Cry Wolf is a classic of the genre although I believe it’s acknowledged these days that Mowat made a fair bit of it up. He also wrote a lovely kids book called Owls in the Family, it’s a memoir of his childhood growing up in rural Canada and is hilarious.

I really enjoyed A Shadow Above, ravens are amazing birds.

Meant to say, the film of Never Cry Wolf is also worth seeking out.

Just ordered Corvus. Crazzzycat, we had a 'crow' experience a few years ago - a juvenile was sitting on the ground in our back yard - was there for quite a while, then started tapping on the living room windows with its beak. We watched it and realised it was injured. DH opened the shed and it hopped inside where it spent the night, and we contacted a local wildlife charity who came and collected it! They are amazing birds - we used to live opposite a building with 'crow step gables' and it was very obvious why they're called that.

There's quite a lot of low key nature writing in Susan Hill's The Magic Apple Tree - more of a country book than and out and out nature book, but a lovely read.

James Rebanks' English Pastoral is a lovely book.

Flora Tompson's Larkrise books have a lot of nature observations (and some interesting writing on folklore and tradition.)

There are some fine nature writers in the 19th century - Gilbert White's Selborne and the inestimable John Muir.

I'm currently enjoying Dara McAnulty’s Diary of a Young Naturalist. It won lots of awards including the 2020 Wainwright Prize for UK nature writing.

What a great idea for a thread.

If anyone has enjoyed Robert Macfarlane, can I suggest you try something by Roger Deakin, who was a bit of a mentor to Macfarlane, whose work is pretty derivative of his. Waterlog and Wildwood are the only books published in his lifetime (I think- he died far too young), but there is also Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, which was published posthumously.

Entangled Lives by Merlin Sheldrake, about fungi, has got a lot of people raving- me included.

These are some of the nature books I've read in recent years. Some are more solely focused on nature writing, whilst others have included nature writing, some as meditation or as ways to cope with physical and/or mental illness.

Diary of a Young Naturalist - Dara McAnulty
The Lost Words
The Lost Spells - both by Robert McFarlane and Jackie Morris
Every Day Nature - Andy Beer
Meadowlands, The Wood, The Running Hare - all by John Lewis Stempel
Fifty Words for Snow - Nancy Campbell
The Light in The Dark - Horatio Clare
Mudlarking - Lara Maiklem
Rising Ground - Philip Marsden
Fingers in the Sparkle Jar - Chris Packham
The Fish Ladder- Katherine Norbury
The Outrun - Amy Liptrot
Common Ground - Rib Cowen
H Is For Hawk - Helen Macdonald
Waterlog - Roger Deakin

I'm in the liked it camp for H is for Hawk. I listened to the audiobook and was completely immersed in her life, the grief she felt for her father and the love for her hawk.

I love Jackie Morris' artwork for The Lost Words and The Lost Spells.

Typo - Rob Cowen, not Rib

The Book Of Trespass by Nick Hayes is another fabulous book that takes in the nature and history of Britain, concentrating on the bits we’re not allowed to access and why that has come about.

I love trees & highly recommend the hidden life of trees, it's fascinating. Also Wilding by Isabella Tree.