Diary of a Young Naturalist - supporting booklist
Inspired by Dara McAnulty's Diary of a Young Naturalist, this month's Wild Reads theme is coming of age and meeting nature.
Take a look at our supporting booklist focusing on how we all connect with the natural world differently.
Find out more about Wild Reads.
Vesper Flights, by Helen Macdonald
Animals don't exist to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they teach us is what we think we know about ourselves. This book presents a transcendent collection of essays about the human relationship to the natural world. Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved pieces, along with new essays on topics and stories ranging from nostalgia and science fiction to the true account of a refugee's flight to the UK.
Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
How long can you protect your heart? For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens.
Borrow Where the Crawdads Sing →
Featherhood: On Birds and Feathers, by Charlie Gilmour
One Spring morning, a young magpie fell from its nest in a Bermondsey junkyard and landed in Charlie Gilmour's life. Abandoned by its parents, the black-and-white bird was unable to fly or even feed itself. It found an unlikely new magpie-father in Charlie, an accident-prone human as qualified for the role as a bird for babysitting. Terrified and starving, the magpie screamed for food every 20 minutes. Raw mincemeat. Grubs. Spiders. The bird grew in strength, and by the time it was well enough to spread its wings, an unbreakable bond had been forged across species. The magpie flew away only to return - a feathered new member of the family. Charlie didn't know it at the time, but birds like this already were part of his family.
Under the Stars, by Matt Gaw
Artificial light is everywhere. Not only is it damaging to humans and to wildlife, disrupting our natural rhythms, but it obliterates the subtler lights that have guided us for millennia. In this exploration, Matt Gaw ventures forth into darkness to find out exactly what we're missing: walking by the light of the moon in Suffolk and under the scattered buckshot of starlight in Scotland; braving the darkest depths of Dartmoor; investigating the glare of 24/7 London and the suburban sprawl of Bury St Edmunds; and, finally, rediscovering a sense of the sublime on the Isle of Coll.
Birdsong in a Time of Silence, by Steven Lovatt
Birdsong in a Time of Silence is the story of a man rediscovering his passion for birdsong and nature. Narrated against the backdrop of the current pandemic, the book opens by acknowledging the new awareness of birds and birdsong that was made possible by the coincidence of spring and the experience of lockdown.
Starting with a portrait of the blackbird - most prominent and articulate of the early spring singers - the book proceeds through ten chapters to explore how birds sing, the variety of singing birds (including the arrival of summer migrants), the science behind their choice of song and nest-sites, and the varied meanings that people have brought to and taken from birdsong - ultimately demonstrating that natural history and human history cannot be separated. In closing, the book reflects on the collective reawakening brought on by this strangest of springs.
Borrow Birdsong in a Time of Silence →
The Ring of Bright Water trilogy, by Gavin Maxwell
This is the chronicle of the life of Gavin Maxwell and the domesticated otters that inhabited a landscape on the west coast of Scotland.
Borrow The Ring of Bright Water trilogy →
Crow Country, by Mark Cocker
For years, Mark Cocker has been obsessed with crows and ravens. This is his account of his preoccupation with these timid birds, their mysterious songs, peculiar abilities and complex relationship with the English countryside.
The Stubborn Light of Things, by Melissa Harrison
The Stubborn Light of Things is a nature diary that will transform the way you see the world. A Londoner for over twenty years, moving from flat to Tube to air-conditioned office, Melissa Harrison knew what it was to be insulated from the seasons. Adopting a dog and going on daily walks helped reconnect her with the cycle of the year and the quiet richness of nature all around her: swifts nesting in a nearby church; ivy-leaved toadflax growing out of brick walls; the first blackbird's song; an exhilarating glimpse of a hobby over Tooting Common.
Moving from scrappy city verges to ancient, rural Suffolk, where Harrison eventually relocates, this diary - compiled from her beloved 'Nature Notebook' column in 'The Times' - maps her joyful engagement with the natural world and demonstrates how we must first learn to see, and then act to preserve, the beauty we have on our doorsteps.
Borrow The Stubborn Light of Things →
Weatherland, by Alexandra Harris
Writers and artists across the centuries, from Chaucer to Ian McEwan, and from the creator of the Luttrell Psalter in the 14th century to John Piper in the 20th, looking up at the same skies and walking in the same brisk air, have felt very different things and woven them into their novels, poems and paintings. Alexandra Harris's subject is not the weather itself, but the weather as it is daily recreated in the human imagination. She builds her remarkable story from small evocative details and catches the distinct voices of compelling individuals.
A Brush With Nature, by Richard Mabey
Described as Britain's foremost nature writer, Richard Mabey has revealed his passion for the natural world in elegantly written stories for 'BBC Wildlife Magazine' for the past 25 years. This collection brings together his favourite pieces and presents a fascinating and inspiring view of our natural landscape.