All of these books and more are available to borrow for free with your library card.
Want more reading suggestions? Take a look at our recommendations.
Walk: Find Your Path to Happiness and Mindfulness in Nature
Sholto Radford
Walk invites you to explore the benefits to be gained from the simple act of walking, hiking and spending time outdoors.
A great natural way to boost your mind, body and soul, walking is simple and free. Without the need for specialist equipment or personal training, it is just about the easiest way to get more active, lose weight and become healthier. And it can be done anywhere. Travelling by foot is also meditative as it fosters a slowness of thought, as you become more aware of your surroundings.
Drawing on Sholto Radford’s extensive work with mindfulness-based practices, this book offers expert guidance and practical exercises to cultivate emotional and physical wellbeing.
Breaking Waves: Discovery, Healing and Inspiration in the Open Water
Emma Simpson
The open water. To the uninitiated, it represents the unknown, an expanse of mystery and uncertainty. But to those who brave the wild waters, it is so much more. A space to heal. A place of communion. A balm to quieten the mind, soothe the soul, and allow you to reconnect with the world and yourself.
Emma Simpson discovered wild swimming after a period of immense pain. Lost in grief, disillusioned with life, and feeling increasingly untethered from the world, she instinctively felt the pull of the water. There she found an unexpected source of hope and strength, a profound sense of connection, and a glorious sisterhood of women – each with their own remarkable stories to tell.
Interweaving the tales of these inspirational women with reflections on her own experiences, Emma explores themes ranging from devastating loss to birth and rebirth, and from chronic illness to body confidence. Whether describing the taste of an iceberg or a kiss from a baby whale, Breaking Waves is a love letter to womanhood and the open water. It’s also a celebration of community, renewal and the power of writing your own life story. Above all else, it is a joyous celebration of going with the flow.
Good Nature: Improve Your Health and Happiness with Nature
Kathy Willis
We know the benefits of eating your greens, or getting your ‘five a day’. But what about the other ways that nature can help us lead healthier – and happier – lives?
In this revolutionary book, Professor Kathy Willis reveals the surprising science behind the natural world and how we can harness its benefits to improve our health: whether it’s gardening with your bare hands to boost your gut microbiome; letting the scent of roses make you a calmer and safer driver; or tuning into birdsong to help reduce stress, and even pain.
With applications for everything from which way we walk to work to choosing where our kids go to school, Good Nature brings the latest scientific research into our homes and workplaces, showing us how we can have better, happier, healthier and longer lives.
New Wild Order: How Answering the Call of the Wild Might Just Save Your Life (and Sanity)
Andy Hamilton
We live in a world that is overfed but malnourished, sunlight deficient, overly competitive, sedentary, and sleep deprived. Our blood pressure and stress levels are at record highs, our mental health at record lows. Our eyes are strained from looking at screens all the time, and our backs are killing us. We buy far too much of what we don’t need, and we aren’t even pooing in the right position!
Yet step outside, maybe walk a few minutes down the road, and you will inevitably see plants bursting with nourishment, hear calming birdsong, breath in fresh air, move your stiff body. Perhaps we have the answer to all our modern malaises right here, outside our own homes. Perhaps it is time for a New Wild Order.
Join forager, author, dad, and everyday fella Andy Hamilton, as he answers his own call of the wild, and discovers how it might just save his life — and yours.
Nature Therapy: How to Use Ecotherapy to Boost Your Sense of Well-Being
Rémy Dambron
Nature therapy is the practice of reconnecting with the natural world. Whether you find your sense of connection in the adventure of windswept cliffs, the solace of a forest, the comfort of your own garden or in the joy of tending a plant in your home, nature has the power to refresh your well-being and help you find your sense of self again.
Whether you’re looking to reduce stress, improve your physical health or simply spark more joy and meaning in life, this book is the ultimate guide to unlocking the transformative power of nature.
Feel-Good Gardening: How to Reap Nature’s Benefits for Mental, Physical and Spiritual Well-Being
Claire Stares
We all know that our environment is critical to our well-being, so when seeking a boost to our happiness, where better to look than the garden? Whether you’re hoping to cultivate a calmer mindset, nurture your physical strength or connect with your community, the restorative powers of gardening can help you flourish.
With valuable information, actionable tips, creative project ideas and feel-good gardening facts, this book will help you discover the all-round health benefits that can come while honing your green fingers.
Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild
Lucy Jones
Today many of us live indoor lives, disconnected from the natural world as never before. And yet nature remains deeply ingrained in our language, culture and consciousness. For centuries, we have acted on an intuitive sense that we need communion with the wild to feel well.
Now, in the moment of our great migration away from the rest of nature, more and more scientific evidence is emerging to confirm its place at the heart of our psychological wellbeing. So what happens, asks acclaimed journalist Lucy Jones, as we lose our bond with the natural world – might we also be losing part of ourselves?
Delicately observed and rigorously researched, this book is an enthralling journey through this new research, exploring how and why connecting with the living world can so drastically affect our health.
Nature Cure
Richard Mabey
In the last year of the old millennium, Richard Mabey, Britain’s foremost nature writer, fell into a severe depression. The natural world – which since childhood had been a source of joy and inspiration for him – became meaningless.
Then, cared for by friends, he moved to East Anglia and he started to write again. Having left the cosseting woods of the Chiltern hills for the open flatlands of Norfolk, Richard Mabey found exhilaration in discovering a whole new landscape and gained fresh insights into our place in nature.
Structured as intricately as a novel, a joy to read, truthful, exquisite and questing, Nature Cure is a book of hope, not just for individuals, but for our species.