Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing, Conservation Writing and Illustrative Books - Shortlist 2025

The Wainwright Prizes are the UK’s foremost awards celebrating nature, conservation, and environmental writing. Named in honour of Alfred Wainwright, writer, walker, and champion of the outdoors, the prizes were established in 2013 to spotlight the growing genre of nature writing and inspire readers to connect more deeply with the natural world. https://wainwrightprize.com/ (books will be added to list as books arrive)

Updated August 19, 2025
K
Kōtui New Plymouth Libraries
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INTERTIDAL : the hidden world between land and sea
AVES, YUVAN.
A deep observation of coast and wetland, climate and self, by a leading Indian ecological activist.
Ingrained: The making of a craftsman
Robinson, Callum.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION A captivating memoir that immerses readers in the life of a Scottish carpenter as he perfects his craft, builds a business, and reflects on what inheritance and shared responsibility...
Our oaken bones : reviving a family, a farm and Britain's ancient rainforests
Hanbury-Tenison, Merlin
An enormously moving and inspiring story about war, trauma, nature and rebirth, written with infectious passion and unsparing honesty. I loved it. - DOMINIC SANDBROOK Scholarly, wise, funny, charming, terrifying and thrilling... I adored it all, every page. - JOANNA LUMLEY<...
Climate Injustice: Why We Need to Fight Global Inequality to Combat Climate Change
Otto, Friederike.
Paper Book
"I can't recommend this book highly enough. It will change how you think about the most important story of our time."--JEFF GOODELL, New York Times bestselling author of The Heat Will Kill You First From one of the world's most celebrated thinkers on climate...
Raising Hare: The heart-warming true story of an unlikely friendship
Dalton, Chloe.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * FINALIST FOR THE 2025 WOMEN'S PRIZE * A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman's unlikely friendship with a wild hare. A BEST BOOK OF THE...
The accidental garden : gardens, wilderness and the space in between
Mabey, Richard
Paper Book
The godfather of British nature writing reflects on the conflict between cultivation and autonomous nature
Is A River Alive?
Macfarlane, Robert.
Paper Book
Hailed in the New York Times as "a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler," Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an...
A training school for elephants
Roberts, Sophy
Paper Book
Out of a sidelined, colonial-era expedition in Africa comes a new history of cruelty, deception and adventure from the acclaimed author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia In 1879, King Leopold II of Belgium launched an ambitious plan to plunder Africa's resources. The key to...
The Lie of the Land: Who Really Cares for the Countryside?
Shrubsole, Guy.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR CONSERVATION 2025 A WATERSTONES AND GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2024 'Both dynamite and medicine' AMY-JANE BEER 'Timely and rousing' THE TIMES ________________________________ The lie of the land: that Britain's...
What the wild sea can be : the future of the world's ocean
Scales, Helen
Paper Book
The acclaimed marine biologist and author of The Brilliant Abyss examines the existential threats the world's ocean will face in the coming decades and offers cautious optimism for much of the abundant life within in No matter where we live, "we are all ocean people," Helen...
The possibility of tenderness : a Jamaican memoir of plants and dreams
Allen-Paisant, Jason
The Possibility of Tenderness is a personal history narrated through the lens of the 'grung' and plants. It's also a people's history of the land, a family saga, an archival detective story through time. It's the migration tale of a young scholar who arrives in Britain from rural Jamaica to...
Nature's Genius: Evolution's Lessons for a Changing Planet
Farrier, David.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR CONSERVATION WRITING SHORTLISTED FOR SCOTLAND'S NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS FOR NON-FICTIONA NEW SCIENTIST BEST POPULAR SCIENCE BOOK OF 2025A WATERSTONES BEST POPULAR SCIENCE BOOK OF 2025'A book that shows how we might evolve to solve the problems we have caused our...
Red Pockets: An Offering
Mah, Alice.
'Part of me knew what the hungry ghosts wanted all along, what they still want. It is not vengeance. No, they want something else, but we refuse to listen. They want us to face up to our broken obligations.' Every spring during the Qingming Festival, people return to their...
Insectopolis : a natural history
Kuper, Peter
Paper Book
Shortlisted for the 2025 Wainwright Prize for Illustrative Books Award-winning cartoonist Peter Kuper transports readers through the 400-million-year history of insects and the remarkable entomologists who have studied them. This visually immersive work of graphic...

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