Nature On Your Doorstep (good books to inspire)
Nature on the Doorstep is a calming and beautifully written book, revealing the simple pleasures of paying attention to the natural world in one’s own backyard, over the course of a year.
In weekly letters, the author shares the joys and curiosities of an ordinary patch of green in upstate New York, cultivated through the art of ‘strategic neglect’ – leaving things be instead of ‘trying to always help’.
From the first flowers of spring to cardinals singing in the winter, the author shows the magic of welcoming unexpected plant and animal life into one’s life.
A paean to the richness we find when we stop to look and let be, the book celebrates the role that humble backyards have to play in both conservation efforts, and an expanded appreciation of the living world.
Angela E Douglas is a British entomologist who is Professor of Insect Physiology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York State.
A Search for Nearby Nature & Wildness
Local: A Search for Nearby Nature & Wildness is a beautiful ode to slowing down, and appreciating time spent in nature. Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing, this book is by adventurer Alastair, who decides after years of travelling around the world, decides to explore the small map around his own local home.
We have just one tiny planet to live on. We must care for it, and use its resources wisely. This is my sole agenda, and I’m broadly of favour of anything that supports it.
So if we differ on specific points, it’s better to search for common ground where we can make positive changes together, rather than just shouting at each other on social media.
For more than twenty years, my favourite thing has been to leave here behind. Spin the globe, and off I go. However my mood has shifted. With the climate in chaos, I can’t justify flying all over the globe for fun anymore, burning jet fuel and spewing carbon for selfies.
If I love wild places so much, was I willing to not visit them, in order to help protect them?
Can this unassuming landscape with busy roads and city lights, hold any surprises for a seasonal trekker. Could one single map actually provide a lifetime of exploring? Surprisingly, the answer appears to be yes.
Despite all his years in remote environments, the author learns the value of truly getting to know his neighbourhood. A celebration of both nature and the outdoors, but also a rallying cry to protect the wild places on our doorstep.
Shows us that space is deep as well as side, and that one need travel only a few hundred yards to become an explorer of the undiscovered country of the nearby.
This funny and wise book is dedicated to – as the Australian poet Les Murray once put it – being ‘only interested in everything’. Robert Macfarlane
Alastair Humphreys has written 14 books, including some for children. He has spent 4 years cycling around the world (46,000 miles through 60 countries).
He has walked across southern India, rowed the Atlantic Ocean, run six marathons through the Sahara, crossed Iceland, busked in Spain and visited the Arctic. He encourages you (if you can’t afford to buy the book) to reserve a copy at your library.
One Man Goes on Safari (in his garden!)
The Year of Sitting Dangerously is the story by Simon Barnes, whose trip to a Zambian safari was put on hold, due to the pandemic.
So instead he walked to a folding chair at the bottom of his garden, and sat down. His plan is to sit in that same spot each day for a year to see (and hear) what happens all around him.
As he watches the world around him change each day, he begins to see his surroundings in a new way. And by restricting himself, he opens up new horizons and grows closer to a world he thought he knew well.
I used to be important. Taxis, aeroplanes, hotels, press conferences, deadlines, ‘something to drink, Mr Barnes’. Movement, travel, passport, laptop, plug adaptors and toothbrush always in the bag, ready to go. Bloody good fun it was, on the whole.
I got less important, but I still travelled a fair bit. And then all of a sudden no-one was important, least of all me. I couldn’t even travel the dozen miles to Norwich. Forbidden to move, I resolved to travel in the only way I could; by staying still. I would sit in the same place, day after day, for a full year and become part of the landscape of Norfolk.
I would notice things: birds of course. Also deer, hares, butterflies, bees, mosquitoes, plants and the miracle of the seasons. I would think, and I would not think. I might even be forced to face the fact, that as winter turned to spring and blackcap raised his voice in song, I was now as unimportant as I had always been.
Simon Barnes is the writer of many books on nature and wildlife. He is a council member of World Land Trust and patron of Save the Rhino. Awarded the Rothschild Medal for services to conservation, he lives in Norfolk, where he manages several acres for wildlife.
His previous book On the Marsh is just as good! It tells the story of how he and wife bought a plot of land that would be lost to development, to allow it to remain for Chinese water deer, otters and hedgehogs, and not be lost to development.
And how this wild place became a place of inspiration and calm for their son, who has Down Syndrome. Watch with him, as the species of birds arriving tops 100, and two marsh harrier families move in.
