Week 3: (November 16-20) – Rennie is asking you to Be The Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert: Three ways to join in this week! You can either share 3 or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert).
I’m going to go with the latter option this week – ‘Become the Expert’. One area of non-fiction that has taken off exponentially in recent years is that of ‘nature writing’. There always were the occasional books on the subject – I’ve even read a few – but rarely; instead vicariously reading them through the wonderful reviews for Shiny by Peter Reason, Rebecca and Liz in particular, and other bloggers like Paul. Climate change, environmental activism and awards like the Wainwright Prize have renewed publishers interest in nature writing in its broadest sense, and shelves are now full of volumes about flora and fauna, living with nature, landscape and biodiversity as well as climate change and more scientific environmental matters to tempt us.
Lately, I have acquired more books that would fit into this broad category, so here is a selection from my TBR that make a nature writing reading list for me – I pledge to read at least some of these:
- Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty – Winner of the Wainwright Prize and Books are My Bag Prize. He was only 14 when he started writing this! (Rebecca’s Shiny review)
- Into the Tangled Bank by Lev Parikian – a musical conductor writes about discovering nature. (Liz’s Shiny review).
- Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie – third in a loose trilogy of prose collections (Peter’s Shiny review)
- Under the Rock by Benjamin Myers – The rock is Scout Rock at Mytholmroyd in the Calder Valley. (Rebecca’s Shiny review)
- Edgelands by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts – travels around allotments, railway embankments, gravel pits and more spaces at the edge of our conurbations.
- A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson – All about bumblebees.
- The Salt Path by Raynor Winn – The uplifting true story of the couple who lost everything and embarked on a journey of salvation across the windswept South West coastline. (Paul’s review)
I want to read the McAnulty first – but which would you read next?
Edgelands, so many of these in London!
Goulson. I love bumblebees!
Do you have the excellent “Field Guide to the Bees of Britain and Ireland” by Flak and Lewington? Highly recommended!
I love this kind of writing too, and having read and loved Edgelands pre-blog I highly recommend it! 😀
Surfacing is a gorgeous book and I’m really keen to read Dara’s book
The better half enjoyed Dara’s book, and it’s on my TBR list, so I’d recommend that.
I’ve read the 7 in your feature image — all fine choices. The Goulson and Parikian are on the more lighthearted end and the Myers is on the more poetic/profound end; it all depends what you’re in the mood for! The Salt Path is the least nature-y of the bunch, more of a standard memoir.
What to read next? It HAS to be The Salt Path. Then you can go out and buy the follow up which came out a few months ago )called The Wild Silence) because when you get to the end of Salt Path you will absolutely want to know what happens to this couple when they finish walking
I really liked Into the Tangled Bank and I will be getting The Salt Path and The Wild Silence after my birthday if they haven’t already appeared!