October 2024: Nature Writing
There has been such an explosion in nature writing in the past decade that every month brings a wealth of exciting new titles. But which to choose? This is where literary prizes can play a key role in the decisions of librarians, booksellers and readers.
The Wainwright Prize is awarded annually to books which most successfully inspire readers to embrace nature and the outdoors and develop a respect for the environment. This month of our picks include the three winners from 2024, and two other titles we all love.
Late Light: The Secret Wonders of a Disappearing World by Michael Malay
“Late Light brings the reader along with Michael Malay on a very human journey of discovery, connection and realization. Michael portrays his evolving emotional and intellectual relationships with people, place and nature in a way that’s very easy to get on board with, while still having moments of beautiful prose that uplift the reading experience. Accompanying the author through the book, the reader will go on their own journey in relation to the experiences, themes and issues raised as things progress to an empowering call for positive change.” Dr Khalil Thirlaway, Wainwright Nature Writing Prize judge.
Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World by Helen Czerski
“In Blue Machine, we are immersed into the world of the ocean with spectacular detail, from the minuscule to the macroscopic, guided through the ocean’s anatomy and introduced to the people who live in intimate relationships with it. It is overwhelming and astounding how little we know about our oceans despite the immense role they play in sustaining life on this planet. With ocean temperatures reaching 400-year highs, and mounting threats from deep-sea mining operations across the globe, understanding and taking action to protect ocean ecosystems has never been more urgent. Through compelling narratives, inspiring stories and in-depth research Helen Czerski transforms our view of the Blue Machine.” Joycelyn Longdon, Wainwright Conservation Prize judge and founder of Climate in Colour.
The Heart of the Woods by Wyl Menmuir
In his follow-up to the award-winning The Draw of the Sea, Wyl Menmuir weaves personal reflection, ecological insight, and historical context into a rich exploration of the complex relationship between humans and the natural world. Menmuir, also an acclaimed novelist, beautifully captures the emotional and symbolic weight that forests carry in our collective consciousness through myth, ritual and folklore. But while deeply contemplative, the book is also a call to action, and a must-read for anyone concerned about Britain’s threatened wildlife habitats.
Sea Bean by Sally Huband
Sea Beans are seed pods that fall from vines in the tropics and are carried around the globe on ocean currents. Wherever they are found washed up on shores, local folklore has turned them to talismans and charms for anyone that finds them. When Sally Huband moves to the windswept Shetland Islands and pregnancy triggers a chronic illness, she is forced to slow down. She takes to the beaches and her search for a sea bean begins.
On Shetland’s stormy shores, Huband finds the world washed up at her feet, discovering a wealth of treasures and curiosities. There are orcas too and the shriek of sea birds overhead. Huband’s beachcombing path takes her further afield too, from the Faroese archipelago to the Orkney islands, and the Dutch island of Texel. It opens a world of ancient myths, fragile ecology, and deep human history. It brings her to herself again.
Winner of the Highland Book Prize, 2023 Sea Bean is a message in a bottle of the interconnection of our oceans, communities and ourselves, and an invitation to feel belonging when we are adrift.
Books for Younger Readers
Foxlight by Katya Balen
Winner of the 2024 Wainwright Prize for Children’s Writing
Fen and Rey were found curled up small and tight in the fiery fur of the foxes at the very edge of the wildlands. Fen is loud and fierce and free. She feels a connection to foxes and a calling from the wild that she’s desperate to return to. Rey is quiet and shy and an expert on nature. She reads about the birds, feeds the lands and nurtures the world around her.
They are twin sisters. Different and the same. Separate and connected. They will always have each other, even if they don’t have a mother and don’t know their beginning. But they do want answers. Answers to who their mother is and where she might be. What their story is and how it began. So when a fox appears late one night at the house, Fen and Rey see it as a sign – it’s here to lead them to their truth, find their real family and fill the missing piece they have felt since they were born.
Foxlight is a heart-breaking and heart-warming story about sisterhood, found family and accepting love in the most unusual and unknown places.
Lyrical, with a quality of fairy tale – a finely crafted celebration of nature, sisterhood, stories and love. – The Times
Quietly wild, richly thoughtful. – The Guardian
Poetry
Poem of the Month
Dog Days Done by Salena Godden
Summer lifts her skirt
revealing a glimmer of
amber, light and yellow.
Summer takes her time
to pack her belongings,
her weary butterflies
and thirsty bees.
And somewhere
in a distant field
August writes
goodbye letters
in gold on hay
and corn and
chestnut and you.
The morning after
the first thunderstorm
you’ll open the window
and smell it changed,
wafts of smoke,
and rain and past.
This ending
is a beginning.
Make hay
and make love,
gather bilberries
and blackberries.
Dog days done,
Sirius is south,
the last burst of roses,
apples and cider,
the Lughnasadh feast,
the tomato harvest,
the fruits so red and ripe
in September’s hands,
summer feeding
autumn’s mouth.
Dog Days Done features in With Love, Grief and Fury, published by Canongate in May 2024.
Salena Godden’s sensuous poem portrays the turning of the season in colour, tastes and scents as a sacred process that plays out beneath the stars. Its short couplets evoke an intimacy between human and nature that remind us we are all connected, and that every end is a beginning.
Salena Godden is a poet, author, activist, broadcaster, memoirist and essayist. Born in the UK, Salena Godden is of Jamaican-Irish heritage and based in London. Her published books include the poetry volumes Under The Pier (Nasty Little Press), Fishing in the Aftermath: Poems 1994-2014 (Burning Eye) and Pessimism Is For Lightweights – 13 pieces of Courage and Resistance, Rough Trade Books, 2018.
She writes: “We live in tumultuous times, most of it terrifying, and I feel the writing of this, the narration of events, the documenting of these times is vital and an important part of my job.” Salena performs widely and appeared at this year’s Green Gathering.
Contact our Librarian if you would like themed book lists to support teaching about climate change.
We’re always looking for contributors to our growing collection of literature to explain and explore the climate and biodiversity emergency. If you’re a writer or poet and would like to share your work or ideas, please get in touch! Contact mattroselibrary@gmail.com for prose or poetsrebelxr@gmail.com for poetry.