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Tree Full of Wonder | Anna Smithers

 

This delightful children’s book introduces young readers to the magnificence and importance of trees. Through lyrical prose and gorgeous illustrations, Tree Full of Wonder explores the many ways that trees enrich our lives—providing shade, food, homes for wildlife, and even helping to combat climate change. Blending wonder with practical knowledge, children will appreciate trees not just as background elements of nature, but as vital, living beings that sustain ecosystems. It’s a gentle yet powerful reminder of the interconnectedness of all life and a call to protect these natural treasures.

Perfect for bedtime stories or independent exploration. Suitable for ages 3-8.

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The Savage Landscape | Cal Flyn

 

A modern  journey into the heart of what we call wilderness, The Savage Landscape weaves together adventure, philosophy and personal reflection, asking urgent questions about humanity’s relationship with the natural world and the meaning of wild places in an era when no corner of the planet remains untouched. Flyn’s lyrical prose carries readers from the ocean floor to volcanic peaks, blending awe-inspiring landscapes with deep historical and cultural insights.

What makes this book exceptional is its refusal to romanticise wilderness. Instead, Flyn confronts the complexities of how humans have shaped—and been shaped by—the wild, challenging readers to reconsider their own relationship with the untamed. The result is a work that is as intellectually stimulating as it is beautifully written, leaving you with a sharper understanding of the wild’s enduring, if complicated, hold on the human spirit.

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No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies | Julian Aguon

 

‘A powerful, beautiful book. Its fierce love – of the land, the ocean, the elders and the ancestors – warms the heart and moves the spirit.’ – Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

Part memoir, part manifesto, Chamorro climate activist Julian Aguon’s No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies is a coming-of-age story and a call for justice-for everyone, but in particular, for Indigenous peoples.

Aguon beautifully weaves together stories from his childhood in the villages of Guam with searing political commentary about matters ranging from nuclear weapons to global warming. Bearing witness and reckoning with the challenges of truth-telling in an era of rampant obfuscation, he culls from his own life experiences to illuminate a collective path out of the darkness.

A powerful and bold voice writing at the intersection of Indigenous rights and environmental justice, Aguon is entrenched in the struggles of the people of the Pacific who are fighting to liberate themselves from colonial rule, defend their sacred sites and obtain justice for generations of harm.

In No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies, Aguon shares his wisdom and reflections on love, grief, joy and triumph, and extends an offer to join him in a hard-earned hope for a better world.

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The Dark Frontier: Unlocking the Secrets of the Deep Sea | Jeffrey Marlow

 

The deep sea is one of our planet’s last frontiers. Here, where the light cannot reach, lies a strange, wonderful and breathtaking world, teeming with scientific marvels and lessons for the future of life on this planet. In The Dark Frontier, marine microbiologist and explorer Jeffrey Marlow plunges us into the ocean’s depths and invites us to witness close-up encounters with its hidden brilliance. Translucent shrimp dance through sulphurous vents, crabs stretch twelve feet from claw to claw and the eerie chalk-white towers of the ‘Lost City’ loom.

Immersive and illuminating, Marlow’s journeys reveal alarming warning signs as well: we are irrevocably changing the deep sea before we have even had a chance to understand it. This book offers insights into the ways in which the twinned forces of exploration and exploitation have shaped our relationship with the ocean. It shows how life can thrive in even the most extreme conditions, and reveals critical links between the deep sea and life on land.

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Dream State | Eric Puchner

 

Puchner’s engrossing multi-generational portrait of a groups of family and friends in Montana is a thoughtful examination of love, loss, and the enduring effects of past choices. But it is in its depiction of the desecration of wildlife and the creeping effects of climate breakdown that it excels. The story starts by an idyllic Montana lake in the present era, with the quickly-doomed wedding of Ceci and Charlie. But as the decades go by, we see how the lives of the bride, the groom, his best man and their families are shaped by good or bad luck, critical decisions, betrayals – and the creeping effects of wildlife habitat loss and climate breakdown. Like the best novels that deal with environmental issues, it’s in specifics – like the sinking water level in the once-pristine lake, or the disappearance of the native wolverine – that the present and the near-future are brought to poignantly exquisite life.

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The Signature of All Things | Elizabeth Gilbert

 

Elizabeth Gilbert may be best known for her searching memoirs, but her curiosity extends, in this enthralling historical novel, to the world of plants. The story follows Alma Whittaker, a brilliant and observant woman born into a botanical family in Philadelphia, who dedicates herself to the study of mosses. Through years of meticulous observation, she begins to notice patterns in how the plant spreads, competes, and adapts to its environment, and leads her to ideas resembling evolution and natural selection – years before Darwin’s Origin of Species.

Through one woman’s devotion to biological science, Gilbert shows how even the smallest forms of life can expose deep truths about survival, time, and the complexity of existence.

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Raising Hare | Chloe Dalton

 

When Dalton, a high-flying political advisor at Westminster, discovers an abandoned leveret near her home in the English countryside, she debates what to do. Should she leave it where it is, or try to save its life? Stories of human-animal relationships are almost a genre now – think H is for Hawk and My Octopus Teacher – and Dalton’s book, beautifully written and superbly illustrated by Denise Nestor, is a fine addition to the canon. Dalton rescues the animal, but she wisely refrains from naming or caging it. And in studying hare history and observing its development into maturity, she discovers how much it has teach her: “I was moved by the leveret’s dignity, the sense of well-being and calm it spread, and the simplicity of its life.”

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How Flowers Made our World | David George Heskell

 

Humans, animals and insects are all attracted to flowers – and that’s exactly what flowers want, because with their gorgeous colours, enticing smells and alluring shapes, they are on a mission. Biologist and environmental scientist David George Haskell casts flowers as dynamic “revolutionaries” whose evolution triggered a cascade of biodiversity, transforming oceans, creating new habitats, and even altering the climate. Blending vivid storytelling and cutting-edge science, Haskell’s vibrant book shows how flowers are both portals into deep time and essential players in our ecological future.

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Jeff VanderMeer | Area X

 

Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series, beginning with the iconic trilogy—Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptanceand extending to the fourth volume, Absolution, is an immersive, often disturbing exploration of the unknowable forces of nature, and humanity’s inability to understand and govern them. In evoking the uncanniness of plant and animal life in the mysterious nature reserve-cum-force-field known as Area X, VanderMeer offers a nuanced encounter with a universe that is simultaneously beautiful, horrifying, and transformative. This collection that cements his status as one of the most innovative writers of contemporary speculative literature.

 

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Tiny Gardens Everywhere | Kate Brown

 

A celebration of the power of small acts of care and creativity, the acclaimed historian Kate Brown’s exploration of urban gardening is a timely reminder that for centuries, all across the world, ordinary people have transformed overlooked corners of their communities into oases of nourishing vegetation. To Brown, allotments, guerilla gardens and small plots of land carved from the urban wilderness are symbols of resilience, resistance, community, and environmental awareness. A manifesto for the next food revolution, Tiny Gardens Everywhere highlights how local action can inspire wider renewal – and why urban micro-farming is an important, if overlooked source of free food.