SIGN UP! 
Best Books for Earth Day: Nature, Conservation & Climate Fiction
By: Angela & Melissa
Updated:
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we may earn a referral fee from qualifying purchases.Earth Day is a perfect time to reconnect with the natural world through reading. Our list of Earth Day-themed books for adults includes both fiction and non-fiction titles that explore our relationship with the Earth, animals, plants, and each other.
Understanding the Terms Climate Fiction and Eco-Fiction
Climate fiction, sometimes abbreviated as cli-fi, is a genre of literature that explores how the climate and environment influence the world of the story. The genre includes a range of science fiction, literary fiction, thrillers, and even romance.
Eco-fiction is a broader genre that explores humans’ relationships with the natural world, including themes like wilderness, conservation, biodiversity, or environmental ethics. Ranging from literary to mysteries to romance, the common element in this genre is the focus on nature. In short, climate fiction is one type of eco-fiction.
Eco-Fiction: The Best Earth Day Books for Adults
In celebration of Earth Day, we’ve put together a list of some of the best eco-fiction books, including everything from historical fiction and romances to heavier literary climate fiction.
Wild Dark Shore
Book Summary
Dominic Salt is the caretaker of Shearwater, a tiny island near Antarctica which is home ot the world’s largest seed bank. The island was once full of researcherers, but as a result of rising sea levels, Salt and his three children are now the last inhabitants of the island working to pack up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground.
Although they are surrounded by natural beauty, the isolation of the island has taken its toll on each of the Salt children – 18-year-old Raff who is suffering his first heartbreak; 17-year-old Fen who spends her nights on the beach among the seals; and 9-year-old Orly who is obsessed with botany. As they prepare for their future, Dominic can’t help looking toward the past and the loss taht drove his family to Shearwater in the first place.
During one of the worst storms the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the family nurses Rowan back to life, their feelings toward her shift from suspicion to affection. The feeling is mutual as Rowan begins to fall for the Salts, but she’s not telling them the whole truth about how she wound up on Shearwater. When she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic has dark secrets of his own.
As storms gather force over the island, will they be able to trust one another enough to work together to protect the precious seeds before it’s too late?
The Book Girls Say…
Charlotte McConaghy is well-known in the climate fiction genre for intertwining personal stories with pressing environmental issues. She is the best-selling author of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves, both of which would also be excellent choices for this reading prompt.
Damnation Spring
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
92% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Rich Gunderson comes from a long line of loggers. For generations, his family has made their living off of the Redwood trees, but now his way of life is threatened as the National Park Service is expanding to protect tens of thousands of acres of trees. Additionally, environmentalists are protesting the logging operations on the remaining private lands, raising concerns about water contamination. In an effort to secure his family’s future, Rich secretly spends their savings on a grove of ancient Redwoods that he hopes to harvest.
Rich’s wife, Colleen, is an amateur midwife who hopes for a second child of her own. She has suffered a long string of miscarriages and has begun to see a disturbing number of birth defects and fetal deaths throughout her small community. She begins to suspect that the herbicides used by the logging company that employs her husband might be to blame.
The Book Girls Say…
Angela picked this book up immediately after returning from a family vacation to the Redwoods, so she was instantly drawn to the story about the towns she had just visited. But it was the dual perspectives of this story that kept her hooked. We see the story unfold from the point of view of both Rich and Colleen, as well as a few chapters from their eight-year-old son.
In a world where people often seem increasingly unwilling to listen to opposing viewpoints, the storytelling format of this eco-fiction novel compassionately shines a light on all the shades of gray that exist for the families and communities caught in the middle.
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
Books Set in the 1970s
Best Books of 2021
Best Books Like The Women by Kristin Hannah
Flight Behavior
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
94% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Dellarobia had dreams of college, but she gave that up to marry Cub when she accidentally got pregnant at 17. After a challenging decade in an unhappy marriage on their failing Tennessee farm, she begins flirting with a younger man. One day, while hiking up a rural mountain road in Appalachia to meet this man, she spots what appears to be a lake of fire in the forested valley below. She soon learns that what she saw were actually millions of Monarch butterflies covering the trees. But why are these butterflies so far off course from their normal winter home in Mexico? Soon, scientists, religious leaders, tourists, and the media descend on the town, each offering their own explanations.
The Book Girls Say…
This climate fiction novel paints a complex picture of the impact of climate change not just on the natural world, but also on ordinary working people. It strikes a nice balance between storytelling, science, and sociology – all with wonderful character development. While the specific biological event described in the book is fictional, Kingsolver says, in her author’s note, that “the rest of the biological story…is unfortunately true.”
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
Book Summary
It’s not that Ellie Cooke doesn’t care about things like climate change and plastic pollution, it’s just that her life is too busy to focus on things like that. But when the PR firm she works for is taken over by environmentalist Nolan Reece, she realizes that she’ll have to get serious about being green if she wants to avoid being the one getting recycled.
Ellie scrambles to reinvent herself as an environmentally conscious superstar—or at least fake it well enough to keep her job, but she discovers that going green is no walk in the park. Cue a string of hilariously misguided attempts at sustainable living, from disastrous composting experiments to cringeworthy bike rides in business attire.
As Ellie bumbles through the world of green living, she finds herself falling for Nolan, the very man making her life so complicated.
The Book Girls Say…
This is described as a laugh-out-loud romance with a side of satire.
The Overstory
Book Summary
This sweeping, multigenerational novel intertwines the lives of nine individuals who are each profoundly connected to trees. It begins with individual backstories that read like short stories: a soldier saved by a banyan tree in Vietnam, a young woman struck by lightning who becomes a passionate eco-warrior, a scientist who uncovers the hidden ways trees communicate, and an artist who inherits generations of photographs documenting a single chestnut tree.
As their lives unfold, each character comes to understand the vital role trees play in sustaining life on Earth. Their paths converge as they join a movement to stop deforestation, leading to acts of protest, sabotage, and reflection.
The Book Girls Say…
The Overstory was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2019. The Pulitzer board described the novel as “an ingeniously structured narrative that branches and canopies like the trees at the core of the story, whose wonder and connectivity echo those of the humans living amongst them.”
This is a complex work of literary fiction with an interesting structure and dense, descriptive passages.
The Net Beneath Us
Book Summary
After her husband Silas is injured in a devastating logging accident, Elsa is left to care for their young children in their unfinished, off-the-grid home in rural Wisconsin.
Set over the course of one year, Elsa must navigate the harsh realities of impending winter without modern conveniences. As she grapples with grief and isolation, Elsa strives to forge a connection with the land that Silas cherished, discovering her own strength and self-reliance. Throughout this journey, she learns to accept support from unexpected sources, leading to personal growth and resilience.
The Book Girls Say…
Drawing from her own experiences living off the grid, Dunbar’s debut novel offers a lyrical exploration of loss, marriage, parenthood, and the healing power of nature.
The Seed Keeper
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Long before spring meant placing orders for seeds through gardening catalogs, the Dakhótas relied on their strong seed-saving traditions for survival. While this book will teach you about that seed-saving heritage, it also covers so much more.
Rosalie Iron Wing grew up learning about plants and her ancestry as a Dakhóta from her father. However, when he goes missing, she is sent to live with a foster family. Decades later, Rosalie is now both a mother and the widow of a farmer. She still takes solace in their land, although it has been threatened by both nature and man.
When Rosalie returns to her birthplace to learn more about her family history, she learns about the trauma of boarding schools, the war between the Dakhótas and the government, and the cache of seeds that survived through generations.
The Book Girls Say…
Diane Wilson is a Dakota writer who uses personal experience to illustrate broader social and historical context.
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
Minnesota Books: The Best Books Set in the Land of 10,000 Lakes
Great Novels About Gardens
Best Books From 2021
Barkskins
Book Summary
This sweeping historical novel spans more than 300 years, tracing the lives of two Frenchmen who arrive in 17th-century New France (now Canada) as woodcutters. René Sel and Charles Duquet begin as indentured laborers, but their paths diverge—René’s descendants intermarry with the Mi’kmaq people and remain close to the land, while Duquet seeks wealth, eventually founding a timber empire.
The novel follows their descendants across generations, exploring the devastating impact of deforestation, colonialism, and exploitation on both people and the environment.
The Book Girls Say…
Described as a meditation on nature, legacy, and the cost of taming the wilderness, this novel blends personal stories with ecological themes. The author examines the relentless drive for progress and profit and how it shapes families, landscapes, and nations.
Annie Proulx is perhaps best known for penning the short story Brokeback Mountain, which was adapted into an Academy Award winning film, and she also won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for fiction for her 1993 novel, The Shipping News.
Shipped
Book Summary
Henley and Graeme are up for the same promotion at the cruise line they work for. While they’ve never met, they’ve exchanged more than a fair share of snarky emails.
To determine who will receive the dream job, their boss requests that they each prepare their best proposal on how to increase bookings for the Galapagos Island cruise itinerary. To give them each an equal chance, their boss sends them on the cruise to experience it for themselves. Obviously, because this is a rom-com, they’re forced to travel together.
As Henley explores the islands, she becomes increasingly aware of the delicate balance between tourism and environmental preservation. She decides to focus her proposal on creating responsible travel opportunities that support the conservation of the natural beauty and ecology of the Galápagos.
Despite the passion behind her pitch, Henley still has to beat Graeme if she wants to win the promotion. To complicate things further, the line between loathing and liking him is becoming thinner than a postcard.
The Book Girls Say…
The vivid descriptions of the Galapagos will have you adding this destination to your travel bucket list! This book is perfect for fans of The Hating Game. We’d give Shipped a PG rating, making it perfect for those looking for a rom-com without the steam.
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
13 of the Best Office Romance Books
Books Like The Hating Game
Greenwood
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Greenwood is a multi-generational saga, following one family from 1934-2038. However, the book works backward, first introducing you to Jake, an eco-tour guide in one of the world’s last remaining forests in 2038.
Then you’ll meet Liam, a carpenter in 2008, followed by Willow in 1974 as she attempts to make up for the sins of her father and his timber empire. Finally, you’ll be all the way back to 1934, when Everett Greenwood spent his days alone with the trees and their maple syrup. One day, he hears the cries of an abandoned baby in the forest. His life and the life of the following generations are forever changed.
Timber and the environment tie the family together through changing generations.
The Book Girls Say…
This is a longer book at 528 pages, but reviewers say you’ll be so engrossed in the world of the Greenwoods that you won’t even notice.
The Music of Bees
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Forty-four-year-old Alice is in the midst of deep grief. She’s unexpectedly lost her husband, her job is a dead-end, and even her beloved beekeeping hobby isn’t bringing her the usual joy. She has even begun to have anxiety attacks, thinking about how far her life has strayed from her dreams.
As she’s transporting 120,000 bees in her truck, she nearly collides with Jake. He’s a troubled, paraplegic teenager with the tallest mohawk in Hood River County. When Alice sees Jake’s genuine interest in the bees and learns about his own difficulties at home, she impulsively invites him to see the farm.
The third member of the unlikely trio that makes up this novel is Harry. He’s twenty-four, and his social anxiety has prevented him from getting a traditional job. He answers Alice’s ad for part-time farm help and is shocked to be hired. Alice, Jake, and Harry become fast friends when they have to work together to stop a pesticide company that is threatening the bees. Through their new friendship, they each begin to heal.
The Book Girls Say…
This eco-fiction intertwines themes of environmental activism and the importance of pollinators within a narrative centered on personal healing and friendship. While this book deals with grief and other tough topics, the overall book is uplifting and heartwarming.
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
15 Buzzy Novels About Bees
Must-Read Found Family Books
Books Set in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota
The Island of Missing Trees
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
93% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Teenagers Kostas & Defne have a growing love for each other, but it’s forbidden because one of them is Greek Cypriot and the other is Turkish Cypriot. In the taverna where they meet, a fig tree grows through the roof. The tree survives war, the destruction of the capital, and the disappearance of the teen couple.
Decades later, when Kostas returns, he’s now a botanist searching for native species and his lost love.
The Book Girls Say…
While this novel is heavy, our readers say it also beautifully showcases the flora and fauna of Cyprus.
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
Welcome to Glorious Tuga
Book Summary
Charlotte has just qualified as a vet in London but is leaving the island of England to study the endangered gold coin tortoises on the tiny South Atlantic island of Tuga de Oro. While she outwardly claims that she’s there to save the turtles, the reality is that she’s trying to solve the mystery of her connection to Tuga.
When she arrives, she has little time to investigate because she’s overwhelmed by helping more than tortoises. The island’s dogs, goats, donkeys, and even the islanders themselves seem to need her. Luckily, there’s another new doctor in town as well, and he is distractingly handsome.
The Book Girls Say…
While this novel has a romance storyline, it’s also a story of conservation, female friendship, and the realities of life on a small island.
A second book in the series is scheduled for publication in June 2025!
The Four Winds
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
98% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
As the Dust Bowl drought gripped the Great Plains, millions were out of work, crops failed, water dried up, and farmers fought to keep their land. This is the story of Elsa Martinelli, who is forced to make an agonizing choice: fight for her land in Texas or move west to California in search of a better life.
Like so many of her neighbors, Elsa courageously faces the hardships and sacrifices that came to define an entire generation during the Great Depression as they fought for the American Dream.
The Book Girls Say…
The novel vividly portrays the devastating environmental impact of over-farming, soil erosion, and prolonged drought. You’ll find additional books about this ecological disaster on our list of books about the dust bowl.
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
Best Kristin Hannah Books
Unforgettable Dust Bowl Books
Best Books of 2021
Books Set in the 1930s
The Signature of All Things
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
92% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Spanning much of the 18th & 19th centuries, this book tells the story of the fictional Whittaker family. The patriarch, Henry, begins life as a poor Englishman before making his fortune in South America. He rises to be the wealthiest man in Philadelphia.
His daughter, Alma, gets his money and his great mind. She becomes a botanist who studies the mysteries of evolution while falling in love with a man obsessed with the spiritual realm. She is scientific while he’s an artist. Follow this unlikely couple as their story soars around the globe.
The Book Girls Say…
If you loved the writing style of Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls, pick up her 2013 fiction, The Signature of All Things, which delves into the historical context of botanical science.
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
Books that Span Multiple Continents
Books Like City of Girls
Best Books From 2013
Book Summary
After a rough divorce, Katie’s friend, Bess, offers her the opportunity for a fresh start as a residential caretaker at a nature preserve. Katie accepts despite not being a “nature person.” How hard can it be?
Something feels off to Katie right from the start. The farmhouse looks as if the last caretaker barely even moved out. Then, late one night, a terrified woman arrives frantically looking for a safe place to hide. It soon becomes clear to Katie that caretaking involves more than she bargained for.
Soon Katie is questioning if she can trust the brooding groundskeeper, the daily regulars – the hikers, dog walkers, bird-watchers, and photographers – and even Bess. As she digs for clues as to why the last caretaker left behind, she’ll be forced to call upon courage she never knew she had.
The Book Girls Say…
This thriller is a good pick if you are looking for a book where the natural elements form the backdrop, but where the focus is on the domestic suspense rather than on environmentalism or conservation.
Be aware that this book deals with domestic violence.
The Podcast Chronicles
Book Summary
Sue’s children are all headed off to college and her husband travels for work all the time. At age 50, she fears she’s reached the point in her life where it’s nothing but boring years ahead of her. But then a magazine article catches her eye. She learns that a New York developer wants to build a tacky resort and theme park near her idyllic home in Durango.
Eager to rally grassroots community support against the project, Sue rolls up her sleeves, recruits an environmental attorney, and ropes her tech-savvy son into helping her with podcasting. Soon, she finds herself up against the deep pockets of the developer, political opposition, and online trolls. On her side of the battle are two new friends – equally strong-willed women passionate about protecting their mountain home.
The Book Girls Say…
This novel addresses themes of environmental conservation while focusing on personal growth and friendship during mid-life.
Counting Miracles
Book Summary
Following in the footsteps of the grandfather who helped raised him, Tanner Hughes became an Army Ranger. Spending his life abroad, Tanner was always happiest when seeking his next adventure, wiith no desire to settle down. But when his grandmother passes away, she leaves him with the name of the father he never knew and emplores him to “find where you belong.”
Although he is due at his next posting soon, Tanner’s curiosity draws him to Asheboro, North Carolina. Shortly after arriving in town, he meets doctor and single mom, Kaitlyn Cooper.
Nearby, 83-year-old Jasper lives alone in a cabin on the edge of the Uwharrie National Forest. With just his dog for company, Jasper is haunted by a tragic accident that took place decades before. When he hears rumors that a legendary white deer has been spotted, he becomes dedicated to protecting it from poachers.
This novel intertwines the lives of these three individuals who are seeking purpose and connection. As their paths converge, each
The Book Girls Say…
While the novel intertwines elements of environmental conservation, it primarily focuses on personal journeys of self-discovery, familial relationships, and redemption.
Parable of the Sower
Book Summary
Originally published in 1993, this sci-fi / cli-fi novel presents a chilling vision of America in the year 2024. In this imagined dystopian future, society has collapsed under the weight of climate change, economic ruin, and unchecked violence.
The story follows Lauren Olamina, a teenage girl with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her feel the pain of others as her own. After her walled community near Los Angeles is destroyed, she embarks on a dangerous journey north, gathering a group of survivors along the way. Guided by her new belief system, Earthseed, which teaches that “God is Change,” Lauren offers a vision of hope and transformation in a fractured world.
Though written decades ago, Butler’s imagined 2024 remains hauntingly relevant. Blending science fiction with deep social and environmental commentary, Parable of the Sower is a gripping tale of resilience, transformation, and the human drive to build something better amid disaster.
The Book Girls Say…
This novel has been recently recommended to us by several well-read friends who say it’s one of the books that has stuck with them the most through the decades.
South Pole Station
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
97% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Thirty-year-old Cooper had a promising career as a painter, but a recent family tragedy has left her feeling lost. After answering 500 obscure questions, she’s been deemed sufficiently resilient for polar life and accepts a place in the National Science Foundation’s Artists & Writers Program in Antarctica.
She joins a group of other misfits also deemed capable of surviving at South Pole Station, with an average temperature of -54°F and no sunlight for six months a year.
The arrival of a fringe scientist who doesn’t believe in climate change draws Cooper and the other “Polies” into the center of a worldwide controversy.
The Book Girls Say…
In addition to providing a realistic (NOT feel good) look at life at the South Pole research station, this novel also provides a fascinating examination of the interplay between politics and science.
The rating from our readers is quite a bit higher than the rating on Goodreads (3.4), which seems to be due to the fact that the both the cover and publisher synopsis suggest something lighter and more humorous than what this novel actually delivers.
Although Cooper is the central character in this novel, numerous chapters are told from other characters’ perspectives (some of which are uncomfortable), providing deeper insights and understanding.
Highly-Rated Non-Fiction & Memoirs for Earth Day
A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future
Book Summary
World-renowned naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough wrote this book at the age of 94 to as a witness statement and a vision for the future.
As a young man, David felt that he was experiencing the untouched natural world, but with age he came to realize that loss of the planet’s wild places and biodiversity was happening all around him the entire time. But he still sees hope to put things right and restore the world we inherited, and he shares recommended strategies.
The Book Girls Say…
This book was the 2020 Goodreads Winner for Readers’ Favorite Science & Technology.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants
Book Summary
This is a lyrical and insightful blend of memoir, science, and Indigenous wisdom that explores the relationship between humans and the natural world. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, weaves together scientific knowledge and traditional ecological teachings to reveal the importance of living in harmony with the earth.
Through personal stories, reflections, and ecological observations, she invites readers to see the natural world not as a resource to be exploited, but as a community of beings to be honored and cared for.
The Book Girls Say…
Braiding Sweetgrass was awarded the 2014 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. Seven years after its initial publication, this non-fiction title landed on the New York Times Best Seller list, where it stayed for more than 240 weeks.
If you’ve already read Braiding Sweetgrass, or if you are just looking for a shorter read, consider picking up Robin Wall Kimmerer’s 2024 published essay, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, in which she addresses how we can reorient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community by learning from the natural world.
Book Summary
Part travelogue and part history of America’s public lands, you’ll armchair travel across the country to some of America’s most beautiful locations as you read That Wild Country.
The public land trust owned by the citizens of the US is the largest in the world, and the lands serve as havens for wildlife and recreation zones for visitors. However, since the inception of the public land system, there has been controversy. Some want conservation, while others want the vast resources utilized. This book is the perfect primer on the topic.
The Book Girls Say…
This book was a Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Science read in 2020.
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden
Book Summary
In this memoir, Camille T. Dungy recounts her seven-year odyssey to diversify her garden in the predominantly white community of Fort Collins, in northern Colorado, at the base of the Rocky Mountains.
When Dungy moved back to her home state in 2013, the Fort Collins community held strict restrictions about what residents could and could not plant. In resistance to these homogeneous policies, Dungy employed the various plants, herbs, vegetables, and flowers she grows in her garden as metaphor and treatise for how homogeneity threatens the future of the planet, and why cultivating diverse and intersectional language in our national discourse about the environment is the best means of protecting it.
The Book Girls Say…
Born in Denver in 1972, Camille T. Dungy is a poet and a professor in the English Department at Colorado State University. A graduate of Stanford University and the University of North Carolina, her many accolades include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and being a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism.
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
In her early twenties, Laura lacked direction and decided to quit her job to embark on a backpacking trip in Bolivia. She found herself at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle. It was filled with over a hundred lost and hurt animals and an equally complex cast of employees and volunteers. Laura was assigned to work with a puma named Wayra.
Set against the backdrop of deforestation, the illegal pet trade, and forest fires, this memoir explores what happens when two creatures needing rescue find one another.
The Book Girls Say…
The Puma Years was a 2021 Goodreads Choice Award nominee for Best Memoir.
In 2007, author Laura Coleman went to Bolivia to volunteer with Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi (CIWY), an NGO that manages three wildlife sanctuaries. This work inspired her to start the UK-based charity ONCA (Panthera onca means jaguar).
We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People
Book Summary
Nemonte Nenquimo, a Waorani leader from Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, recounts her journey from a traditional Indigenous upbringing to becoming a prominent environmental activist. Raised with ancestral knowledge of plant medicines and shamanism, she initially left her community at fourteen to study with evangelical missionaries.
Disillusioned by their influence and witnessing the environmental devastation caused by oil companies, Nenquimo returned to her homeland. She co-founded the Ceibo Alliance, uniting Indigenous nations to protect their territories. Her leadership led to a landmark 2019 court victory, safeguarding over half a million acres of rainforest from oil drilling. This memoir intertwines personal narrative with the broader struggle for Indigenous rights and environmental conservation.
Book Summary
British author and conservationist Isabella Tree recounts the transformation of Knepp Castle Estate in West Sussex from a struggling farm into a thriving natural ecosystem. Faced with unprofitable farming on heavy clay soil, Tree and her husband, Charlie Burrell, ceased traditional agriculture in 2001 and initiated a pioneering rewilding project.
By introducing free-roaming cattle, ponies, pigs, and deer to mimic ancient grazing patterns, they allowed nature to reclaim the land. This approach led to the resurgence of rare species such as turtle doves, nightingales, and purple emperor butterflies.
Wilding is part memoir and part argument for rewilding as a means to restore biodiversity and address environmental challenges.
The Book Girls Say…
Isabella Tree was adopted by Michael and Lady Anne Tree, daughter of the 10th Duke of Devonshire. She began her career as a travel journalist and published her first book, The Bird Man: The Extraordinary Story of John Gould, in 1991. Subsequent works include Islands in the Clouds: Travels in the Highlands of New Guinea and Sliced Iguana: Travels in Mexico.
Printable Version of this List
Our Inner Circle Members have access to a single-page printable version of this book list, along with other fun perks. Join now for instant access to the printable!
