Nature writers’ favourite reads
Some of the biggest names in nature writing were in Bristol this month for a day celebrating their art as part of the Festival of Ideas in partnership with Bristol 2015. Here the writers’ own favourite books are assembled into a green-themed reading list.
He discussed the “excitement of getting to know the world again through books” and was particularly enthusiastic about the classic series of field guides known as The Observer’s Books which cover topics from bird eggs to fungi, grasses, lichens and pond life.
John Burnside’s award-winning poetry collections include All One Breath and Black Cat Bone. He named Rachel Carson as his hero.
Her book Silent Spring has been called the most important environmental book of the 20th Century, prompting a re-evaluation of our use of pesticides and their effects on ecosystems.
Ruth Padel, author of The Mara Crossing amongst others, has a passion for conservation and is the great-great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin.
She recommended Salar the Salmon by Henry Williamson for its “fiercely precise portrait of nature without sentimentality”.
Williamson is best known for his book Tarka the Otter and both titles were once also listed by Rachel Carson as books she would take to a desert island.
Jean Sprackland’s Strands is described as “the ultimate beachcombers book”.
The poet and writer said it is difficult for her to choose anything other than Gilbert White’s The Natural History of Selborne which she described as a “glorious read”.
The book is a collection of letters to fellow naturalists, a ‘naturalist’s calendar’ of notes and myriad additional observations of species in Hampshire.
It is said to have charmed countless literary figures since it was published in 1789.
Further classic literature was discussed with the panel agreeing that 19th Century poet John Clare was a leading light. Paul Farley called Clare’s descriptions of birds in their nests “unsurpassed”.
Meanwhile Helen MacDonald, author of the prize-winning memoir H is for Hawk, named the modernist poetry of RF Langley’s journals and Tim Dee’s The Running Sky: A Birdwatching Life as her current favourites.
In turn, bird devotee Dee’s choice was The Redstart by John Buxton, “the best bird in Europe watched flying through the wires of a POW camp.” Buxton was praised for playing a significant role in the development of ornithology in post-war Britain.
Finally, environmentalist Tony Juniper, whose What Nature Does For Britain has recently been published, cited George Monbiot’s Feral as inspirational.
The campaigning journalist’s call to rewild Britain with wolves, beavers and bears has stimulated a lively debate on the subject and a project to reintroduce lynx has recently hit the headlines.
Is there a nature book that inspired you as a child or that you still enjoy reading as an adult? Share your thoughts with us on social below.
