There's nothing like curling up with a good book in the winter - and 2024 has been a bonza year for new wildlife and nature books - for adults and children. Ben Hoare takes a look at the best
Best wildlife books of 2024
Homecoming: A Guided Journal To Lead You Back To Nature
- Melissa Harrison
- Weidenfeld & Nicolson
- £20
Plenty of guides discuss the wheres and whens of wildlife watching – this one’s more about noticing. Melissa Harrison calls it a “doing book”, and in brilliantly down-to-earth fashion invites us to take time out and reconnect with the more-than-human world around us. Full of seasonal nature prompts, with space to write in your own experiences, Homecoming is as much a manual for rewilding yourself as an introduction to Britain’s natural riches.
This is a warm and welcoming book too, thanks to lovely watercolours by Amanda Dilworth. Rather like going on a ramble with the best kind of friend – one who’s deeply engaged with nature and can’t wait to share it all.
Another joyful book on nature connection is Ebb and Flow (Bloomsbury, £20), written and illustrated by Tiffany Francis-Baker. Packed with seasonal ID guides, recipes and mindful, nature-inspired activities, this is the perfect gift.
The Starling
- Stephen Moss
- Square Peg
- £14.99
Stephen Moss is one of our most prolific nature writers, whose easy-reading, companionable prose style makes his books bestsellers. The Starling delves into the life of one of Europe’s most familiar yet threatened birds, which, as Moss points out, is ironically an invasive pest in other parts of the world. It’s the sixth in his smart series of “bird biographies”, and delivers the same winning formula: an engrossing compilation of ornithological tidbits, cultural anecdotes, literary quotes and well chosen historical artwork.
One Garden Against The World
- Kate Bradbury
- Bloomsbury
- £18.99
Wildlife gardener Kate Bradbury’s second memoir, following’s The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (2018), is equally heart-on-the-sleeve. And it is wonderful – the kind of book that will make you smile, laugh, shake your head and cry, often in quick succession. Bradbury looks back on a year of record global temperatures in which she found myriad tiny ways to make a difference for nature on her doorstep. Refusing to give up, she galvanises herself and the local community – and shows how we can too.
The Accidental Garden
- Richard Mabey
- Profile Books
- £12.99
More than anyone, it was Richard Mabey who kickstarted Britain’s resurgence of interest in writing about nature, in books such as Food for Free (1972) and The Unofficial Countryside (1973). His latest unpicks the evolution of his rural Norfolk garden over the past 20 years, against a backdrop of climate change and the writer’s own advancing years. This is classic Mabey: witty and wise, mixing profound concern about the environment with delight at the way in which nature never fails to surprise us.
Infinite Life
- Jules Howard
- Elliott&Thompson
- £20
Science writer and frequent radio show panellist Howard is back with more brain food, this time a clever story about animal evolution, told from the perspective of how eggs have developed and changed over hundreds of millions of years. “The joy of eggs,” he explains, “is that they sit between the boundary lands of life and death. They represent potential.”
Enchanted Creatures
- Natalie Lawrence
- Weidenfeld & Nicolson
- £20
This terrific, wide-ranging book explores why humans have always created monsters and will appeal to anyone with an interest in natural history, as well as myths and the supernatural. Lawrence digs deep into our subconscious to ask what this imaginary fauna, from dragons and deep-sea kraken to cave beasts and snake women, can tell us about ourselves.
Cull of the Wild
- Hugh Warwick
- Bloomsbury
- £18.99
Culling wildlife is something many conservation organisations do, but would prefer we don’t talk about. To his great credit, Warwick gives an expertly researched, engaging and even-handed account of the complexities involved in the decision to “control” – that is, kill or eradicate – everything from grey squirrels to hedgehogs and pythons.
- Sophie Yeo
- HarperNorth
- £22
Yeo takes us on an exhilarating ride back and forth in time, as she reveals how humans have transformed the face of Britain and nearby Europe. She’s a fantastic writer, and marshals a huge, sweeping narrative to shed light on what the land was once like and how we might in future create landscapes with a greater abundance of wild things in them.
Best children's wildlife books
Return of the Wild: 20 of Nature’s Greatest Success Stories
- Helen Scales
- Laurence King
- £16.99
Perhaps the trickiest part of writing about nature for children is covering environmental issues without terrifying your readers. After all, fears about the planet’s future are not confined to older generations. Eco-anxiety is increasingly seen in primary schools.
Return of the Wild deals with this conundrum by, first of all, looking spectacular, with immersive full-page artworks by illustrator duo ‘Good Wives And Warriors’. These frame 20 hopeful stories of species rescue from around the globe by biologist and science writer Helen Scales. The species featured are mostly charismatic – tigers, kiwis, humpback whales – yet she doesn’t shy away from the problems of habitat loss, pollution, introduced species and a changing climate.
A separate section covers different habitats and their key threats. Aimed at readers age 9–11, Return of the Wild manages to be lush, honest and empowering – a difficult balancing act.
The Animal Body Book
- Jess French
- DK
- £20
Qualified vet, children’s writer and former CBeebies presenter Jess French returns with a fascinating inside-out survey of the animal kingdom. The highlight of this highly original book are incredible cutaways that demonstrate the anatomy of hummingbirds, giraffes, tortoises and much more besides. Fabulous colourful design, eye-popping facts and clear descriptions of the main body systems, such as respiration or digestion, make it a winner. Intended for readers age 5–9, but most adults will learn a thing or two!
Autumn Feast: Nature’s Harvest
- Sean Taylor and Alex Morss
- happy yak
- £12.99
The final instalment in a four-part celebration of the seasons, Autumn Feast is, like its siblings, a handsome picture book imbued with a few brief natural-history messages. Ideal for children age 4–7, the beautifully written spreads are set in fictional suburban settings that could be in Britain or north-west Europe, though only some of the species pictured are actually named. Four spreads at the back of the book reinforce the information on autumnal leaf drop, decay, seed dispersal and so on.
