Wainwright Prize 2024: Available titles from the 2024 shortlist along with winners and nominees from previous years.

Available print titles from the 2024 shortlist along with winners and nominees from previous years.

Our eAudio and eBook collection can be found at: kirklees.overdrive.com/Wainwright Prize 2024

The Wainwright Prize is awarded annually to books which most successfully inspire readers to embrace nature and the outdoors and develop a respect for the environment. This year’s winning books highlight the exploration of nature on a global scale through journeys of migration, finding beauty in the everyday, and celebrate the deep connections between humanity and nature through powerful storytelling.

https://wainwrightprize.com

Updated September 23, 2024
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October, October
Balen, Katya; Harding, Angela
Paper Book
_______________ WINNER OF THE YOTO CARNEGIE MEDAL 2022 WINNER OF THE YOTO CARNEGIE SHADOWERS' CHOICE AWARD 2022 _______________ 'A very special new addition to the shelf and deserves classic status' - The Times Children's Book of...
The flow : rivers, water and wildness
Beer, Amy-Jane
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2023 JAMES CROPPER WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING 'Unparalleled.' THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 'A true masterpiece.' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT 'A tour de force.' GUY SHRUBSOLE 'Quietly courageous.' PATRICK...
Our biggest experiment : an epic history of the climate crisis
Bell, Alice R.
Paper Book
Traversing science, politics, and technology, Our Biggest Experiment shines a spotlight on the little-known scientists who sounded the alarm to reveal the history behind the defining story of our age: the climate crisis. Our understanding of the Earth's fluctuating...
The new climate war : the fight to take back the planet
Mann, Michael E.
Paper Book
Shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year award A renowned climate scientist shows how fossil fuel companies have waged a thirty-year campaign to deflect blame and responsibility and delay action on climate change, and offers a battle plan for how we can...
Time on Rock : A Climber's Route into the Mountains
Fleming, Anna.
Paper Book
A rock-climber's eye view of the natural world, tracing a geological and personal journey across the British Isles over ten years.
Islands of abandonment : life in the post-human landscape
Flyn, Cal
Paper Book
A beautiful, lyrical exploration of the places where nature is flourishing in our absence   "[Flyn] captures the dread, sadness, and wonder of beholding the results of humanity's destructive impulse, and she arrives at a new appreciation of life, 'all the stranger and more...
Fathoms : the world in the whale
Giggs, Rebecca
Paper Book
Winner of the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction * Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award A "delving, haunted, and poetic debut" (The New York Times Book Review) about the...
Silent Earth : averting the insect apocalypse
Goulson, Dave
Paper Book
"A terrific book...A thoughtful explanation of how the dramatic decline of insect species and numbers poses a dire threat to all life on earth." (Booklist, Starred Review) In the tradition of Rachel Carson's groundbreaking environmental classic Silent Spring, an award-winning entomologist...
Shadowlands : a journey through Britain's lost cities and vanished villages
Green, M. R.
Paper Book
Drowned. Buried by sand. Decimated by plague. Plunged off a cliff. This is the extraordinary tale of Britain's eerie and remarkable ghost towns and villages; shadowlands that once hummed with life. Peering through the cracks of history, we find Dunwich, a medieval city plunged off a cliff by sea...
Otherlands : journeys in Earth's extinct ecosystems
Halliday, Thomas (Paleobiologist)
Paper Book
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES CROPPER WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING* *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE* Shortlisted for Waterstones's "Book of the Year 2022" One of:The New Yorker's "The Best Books of 2022 So Far" ...
Leila and the Blue Fox
Hargrave, Kiran Millwood.
Paper Book
Weeks pass, to her they are nameless, they are fading and growing light, the warming of weather.   On this day, she wakes, and begins to walk.   It's a summer of firsts for twelve...
Net zero : how we stop causing climate change
Helm, Dieter
Paper Book
What can we really do about the climate emergency?    The inconvenient truth is that we are causing the climate crisis with our carbon intensive lifestyles and that fixing - or even just slowing - it will affect all of us. But it can be done. In Net...
Where poppies blow : the British soldier, nature, the Great War
Lewis-Stempel, John
Paper Book
Winner of the 2017 Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize for nature writing The natural history of the Western Front during the First World War 'If it weren't for the birds, what a hell it would be.' During the Great War, soldiers...
The instant
Liptrot, Amy
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING 'I loved this book' Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path 'Utterly absorbing' Lucy Jones, author of Losing Eden Wishing to leave behind the quiet isolation of her Orkney...
The outrun
Liptrot, Amy
Paper Book
When Amy Liptrot returns to Orkney after more than a decade away, she is drawn back to the Outrun on the sheep farm where she grew up. Approaching the land that was once home, memories of her childhood merge with the recent events that have set her on this journey. Amy was shaped by the...
Abundance : nature in recovery
Lloyd, Karen (Writer of The gathering tide)
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE JAMES CROPPER WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING ON CONSERVATION. How should we restore nature and species, and why does it matter? What is lost when we choose not to engage in restoration of the natural world? And which parts of ourselves might we also lose if...
Vesper flights new and collected essays
Macdonald, Helen
Paper Book
Animals don't exist in order to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they teach us is what we think we know about ourselves. In Vesper Flights Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new...
Landmarks
Macfarlane, Robert
Paper Book
Words are grained into our landscapes, and landscapes are grained into our words. Landmarks is about the power of language to shape our sense of place. It is a field guide to the literature of nature, and a glossary containing thousands of remarkable words used in England, Scotland, Ireland...
The lost words : a spell book
Macfarlane, Robert
Paper Book
All over the country, there are words disappearing from children's lives. Words like Dandelion, Otter, Bramble, Acorn and Lark represent the natural world of childhood, a rich landscape of discovery and imagination that is fading from children's minds. The Lost Words stands...
Underland : a deep time journey
Macfarlane, Robert
Paper Book
A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2019 WINNER OF THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2020 SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2020 'You'd be crazy not to read this book'...
The wild places
Macfarlane, Robert
Paper Book
From the author of The Old Ways and Underland, an "eloquent (and compulsively readable) reminder that, though we're laying waste the world, nature still holds sway over much of the earth's surface." --Bill McKibben Winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain...
Diary of a young naturalist
McAnulty, Dara
Paper Book
A BuzzFeed "Best Book of June 2021" From sixteen-year-old Dara McAnulty, a globally renowned figure in the youth climate activist movement, comes a memoir about loving the natural world and fighting to save it. Diary of a Young Naturalist chronicles the turning of a year in Dara's...
The insect crisis : the fall of the tiny empires that run the world
Milman, Oliver
Paper Book
From ants scurrying under leaf litter to bees able to fly higher than Mount Kilimanjaro, insects are everywhere. Three out of every four of our planet's known animal species are insects. In The Insect Crisis, acclaimed journalist Oliver Milman dives into the torrent of recent evidence that...
The sea is not made of water : life between the tides
Nicolson, Adam
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2022 'A remarkable and powerful book, the rarest of things ... Nicolson is unique as a writer ... I loved it' EDMUND DE WAAL Few places are as familiar as the shore - and few as full of mystery and surprise.
The treeline : the last forest and the future of life on Earth
Rawlence, Ben
Paper Book
Winner of the 2023 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism "Original and readable." ―Financial Times' Best Environmental Books of 2022 "Superb, inspiring." ―Winner, National Academies of Science Schmidt Awards for Excellence in...
Pastoral song : a farmer's journey
Rebanks, James
Paper Book
The acclaimed chronicle of the regeneration of one family's traditional English farm NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Winner of the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing * Named "Nature Book of the Year" by the Sunday Times * New York Times Editors' Choice * Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the...
The reindeer chronicles : and other inspiring stories of working with nature to heal the Earth
Schwartz, Judith D.
Paper Book
"Compelling, Fascinating, sometimes unexpectedly moving, this vitally important book is, above all, a springboard for hope and transformation."--Isabella Tree "A lucid and compelling look at the global movement of ecological rehabilitation."-- The Boston Globe In a time of...
I belong here : a journey along the backbone of Britain
Sethi, Anita
Paper Book
One woman's journey of reclamation through natural landscapes as she contemplates identity and womanhood, nature, place and belonging. Anita Sethi was on a journey through Northern England in Summer 2019 when she became the victim of a racially motivated hate crime. The crime...
Entangled life : how fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures
Sheldrake, Merlin
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A "brilliant [and] entrancing" (The Guardian) journey into the hidden lives of fungi--the great connectors of the living world--and their astonishing and intimate roles in human life, with the power to heal our bodies, expand our minds, and help us...
The lost rainforests of Britain
Shrubsole, Guy
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR CONSERVATION 2023 The Sunday Times Science Book of the Year As seen on Countryfile 'If anyone was born to save Britain's rainforests, it was Guy Shrubsole' Sunday Times Shortlisted for...
The salt path
Winn, Raynor
Paper Book
The story of the couple who lost everything and embarked on a journey, not of escape, but salvation. Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, the couple lose their home and their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make...
The hidden life of trees : what they feel, how they communicate : discoveries from a secret world
Wohlleben, Peter
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * One of the most beloved books of our time: an illuminating account of the forest, and the science that shows us how trees communicate, feel, and live in social networks. After reading this book, a walk in the woods will never...

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