18 Comments
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Hayley's avatar

These all sound great thankyou! I will get round to them at some point haha.... 😅

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Hannah's avatar

That's the problem with books - there are too many of them!!

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Giulia's avatar

Amazing recommendations! I also enjoyed The Perfumier and the Stinkhorn by Richard Mabey

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Hannah's avatar

Thanks! I've just looked it up - this sounds great. I am a natural scientist myself and definitely believe that scientific exploration & a sense of connection/wonder in nature aren't mutually exclusive but in fact almost necessary. I have saved this recommendation :)

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Leonard Neamtu's avatar

Great recommendations! I'll definitely give Underland a try.

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Lauren Heery's avatar

Nature writing is a genre I only discovered this year, so appreciative for your suggestions! I like the sound of Hidden Nature - I’ve reserved it at my local library.

I really enjoyed Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard last year. Her fascination with the natural world around her - both its beauty and brutality - is deeply described. It’s a meditative read.

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Hannah's avatar

I hope you'll enjoy it!

Oh I must read that one, I guess it's a classic!

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Georgie's avatar

I'd read Alys Fowler's book and had the same feelings as you on the two parts of the narrative! I'm looking forward to checking out the others. I'm currently reading/writing in (it's mostly a journal) 'Homecoming by Melissa Harrison and it's a lovely way to keep noticing nature.

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Hannah's avatar

Interesting that you had the same impression! I did like the book quite a lot despite that issue.

I have been wondering about getting Homecoming, so it's great to hear opinions :)

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Kasey Butcher Santana's avatar

I have not read any of these but will add them to my list to read. Thank you!

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Hannah's avatar

I hope you'll enjoy them!

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Felicity Martin's avatar

Underland is quite visceral – I often had sweaty palms reading it. He goes to some places that I'm glad I've never been!

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Hannah's avatar

Yes, definitely! Maybe I should have added a warning!

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

Thank you for your recommendations! Eagerly awaited. 😄 So interesting to read your thoughts about these books!

I've never heard of Soundings before, definitely a book I'll look into, it sounds as if I might enjoy it very much!

I'm currently reading Meadowland by J. Lewis-Stempel, and I love it! Great observer. Beautiful writing.

Nature writing has become my favourite genre for quite a while now, and it's great how many wonderful books there are to discover! I also noticed that most of the books I've found are by British (or American) authors. I feel, there might be a more active and stronger nature writing tradition there than in other regions of the world. (Germany at least has definitely some catch up to do ...)

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Hannah's avatar

Thanks for your nice comment :) Soundings is great, I hope you like it too!

I should really read sth by Lewis-Stempel - I have been tempted by several of his books but never actually read one...

Yes, it's so interesting how different the countries are! I am German too and found essentially *nothing* that is nature writing or a nature memoir in a narrow sense. There is travel writing with nature descriptions, and there are nature books more in the popular science direction, but that is really quite different. The reason cannot be that German's don't like nature!

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

Ah, I didn't know that. 😊 Yes, I think, that's a perfect description of the kinds of books that we find in Germany, and I absolutely agree that this it not what nature writing is about and what I so love about it! Well, maybe we should write one ourselves. 😁

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Hannah's avatar

Haha, I guess we get a lot of writing training on Substack, so why not...

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Claudia Kollschen's avatar

Great, I keep that in mind … 😅

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