Showing titles in Outdoors & Nature

Small-stream fishing wisdom with the same insight and pungent humor that has become Gierach's trademark. Advice on tackle selecting, reading water, and scouting.

Brought to you by Penguin. This is a big history of little spaces, of nature in urban life, and of gardeners and their gardens through time In the heart of bustling European and American cities lies an overlooked yet vibrant corner of resilience, ingenuity and magic: our gardens. From...

Written on the eve of the Second World War, this memoir tells the remarkable story of how 21-year-old Thomas Firbank decided on impulse to purchase a 2,400-acre hill farm in the rugged, inhospitable mountains of Snowdonia, and how he and his wife struggled to build it back into prosperity.

It’s busy: home to all sorts of wildlife, from red mason bees and bumblebees to house sparrows, hedgehogs and dragonflies. It seems the entire frog population of Brighton and Hove breeds in her small pond each spring, and now there are toads here, too. On summer evenings, Kate watches bats flit above her and for a moment, everything seems alright with the world. But she knows habitat loss remains a huge issue in gardens, the wider countryside and worldwide, and there’s another, far bigger threat: climate change.

Our climate future is not yet written. What if we act as if we love the future? Sometimes the bravest thing we can do while facing an existential crisis is imagine life on the other side. This provocative and joyous book maps an inspiring landscape of possible climate futures. Through clear-eyed...

This is the true story of a journey to a seaside town and the always unpredictable torrent of dark escapades that accompany a life at sea. It's a story of a world peopled by those who often live on the frayed edges of society, who shun the world in which most people thrive. It's a story in which college students and "fish hippies" work in canneries alongside survivalists, rednecks, religious freaks, and deckhands with damning secrets in dangerous waters, driven by the need to feed an insatiable appetite for adventure.

Growing up in an ex-mining town in Nottinghamshire, Arthur Parkinson never wanted a dog, or a cat, or a pony - just hens. As a kid, he was known as 'chicken boy', a taunt Arthur now proudly reclaims with his crested coterie that includes countless hens, from Sheila the white Silkie to Clarissa the champagne-coloured Buff Cochin. A personal and humorous memoir of Arthur's life amongst his hens, this is an invitation to discover the joy that is only possible in the company of these intriguing creatures.

Steve Backshall was nine years old the first time he saw a shark, while on holiday with his family in Malaysia. It was the beginning of a life-long fascination with these 'lords of the sea', and the oceanic life around them. His career as one of the world's most popular naturalists and explorers has taken him to countless underwater places, many never before seen by others. And he's also been witness to the startling decline in fortune of our oceans' wild inhabitants over the past fifty years. Deep Blue takes us on an unforgettable tour of the many worlds of aquatic life.

A powerful return to the forest, where trees have heartbeats and roots are like brains that extend underground. Where the colour green calms us, and the forest sharpens our senses. In The Heartbeat of Trees, renowned forester Peter Wohlleben draws on new scientific discoveries to show how humans are deeply connected to the natural world. In an era of climate change, many of us fear we’ve lost our connection to nature, but Wohlleben is convinced that age-old ties linking humans to the forest remain alive and intact. We just have to know where to look.

Leif Bersweden has always been fascinated by wild plants. From a young age, his afternoons were spent hunting for and cataloguing the plants in his local area. But it is a landscape that is fast disappearing. Climate change, habitat destruction and declining pollinator populations mean that the future for plant life looks bleaker than ever before. Many of us are also unable to identify, or even notice, the plants that grow around us. Now a botanist, Leif decides to go on a mission, to explore the plants that Britain and Ireland have to offer.

The latest adventure from bestselling author Ben Fogle explores what we can learn from nature about living well and living wild. What can rowing across the Atlantic teach us about boredom and about patience? Can coming down from Everest take more resilience than climbing up in the first place?...

Brought to you by Penguin. Shortlisted for the Best Nonfiction Audiobook at the New York Festival Radio Awards 2020. A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2019 WINNER OF THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2020 'You'd be crazy not to read this book' The Sunday...

The secretive Mysteries conducted at Eleusis in Greece for nearly two millennia have long puzzled scholars with strange accounts of initiates experiencing otherworldly journeys. In this groundbreaking work, three experts - a mycologist, a chemist, and a historian - argue persuasively that the sacred potion given to participants in the course of the ritual contained a psychoactive entheogen. The authors then expand the discussion to show that natural psychedelic agents have been used in spiritual rituals across history and cultures.

Sunday Times Bestseller ‘A paradigm-smashing chronicle of joyous entanglement’ Charles Foster Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month (September) Are trees social beings? How do trees live? Do they feel pain or have awareness of their surroundings? In The Hidden Life of Trees Peter...

One of the inspirations for the major motion picture Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Keira Knightley. This is the true story of a 24-hour period on Everest when members of three separate expeditions were caught in a storm and faced a battle against hurricane-force winds, exposure, and the effects of altitude, which ended the worst single-season death toll in the peak's history.

In her early twenties, drifting and directionless, Marina Gibson fled the city for the countryside, and picked up a fishing rod for the first time in years. She was returning to a childhood pursuit and a passion passed on by her mother. Fishing overtook Marina's life as she grew enraptured by the quiet magic of angling and the silent mysteries of the river. The complexity of fly fishing, the ritual of casting and the music of the waterways provided her refuge from a failing marriage, a source of serenity, and a connection to the tradition of female anglers stretching back generations.

Brought to you by Penguin. Roger Deakin set out in 1996 to swim through the British Isles. The result a uniquely personal view of an island race and a people with a deep affinity for water. From the sea, from rock pools, from rivers and streams, tarns, lakes, lochs, ponds, lidos, swimming pools...

Bowhunter and ultramarathoner Cameron Hanes narrates his audiobook with guest appearances from Joe Rogan and David Goggins. Listen in to push beyond your physical limits and improve yourself by following Hanes's lifelong philosophies and disciplines. “It’s all mental.” I say this all the...

* LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025 * * WINNER OF THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2026 * * SHORTLISTED FOR THE CLIMATE FICTION PRIZE * * WINNER OF THE ATWOOD GIBSON WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE * * A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, IRISH TIMES, BBC, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, NPR, GOOD...

The first and only biography of one of the best-known names in golfing circles. Charting Ian Baker-Finch's story from his early golfing career through to his later success in media, it has been written with Ian's full co-operation and explores the tragic circumstances behind the Australian golfer's loss of form.