Best Nature Writing Books: Essential Reading About the Natural World
The best nature writing books — from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and The Snow Leopard to My Family and Other Animals. Essential nature writing, memoir, and natural history.
By Natalie Osei
Nature writing at its best does two things simultaneously: it pays exact attention to what is actually there (the specific animal, the specific plant, the specific landscape), and it discovers in that attention something larger — philosophical, theological, ecological. The books below are the essential reading across the full range of the genre: lyrical nature meditation (Dillard, Matthiessen), comic natural history memoir (Durrell), adventure and nature (Krakauer, Bryson), and the ecological novel that argues for the moral standing of the non-human world (Powers).
The Literary Masterworks
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek — Annie Dillard (1974)
The most ambitious American nature writing of the twentieth century — Dillard’s year at Tinker Creek, attending to what is there with a philosophical intensity that transforms observation into meditation. Her prose moves between precise natural description and wide-ranging reflection; the natural world is her text, and she reads it with the attention of a theologian reading scripture. The most demanding and the most rewarding book in this list. Won the Pulitzer Prize.
The Snow Leopard — Peter Matthiessen (1978)
The most spiritually serious nature writing in American literature — a trek to the Himalayan plateau of northwest Nepal, in grief for a dead wife, interweaving Buddhist teaching with physical hardship and the possibility (not the certainty) of seeing a snow leopard. Matthiessen’s prose is controlled and luminous; the book is simultaneously a travel memoir, a grief memoir, and a meditation on what it means to seek something that may not reveal itself. Won the National Book Award.
Comic Natural History
My Family and Other Animals — Gerald Durrell (1956)
The most beloved animal memoir in English — Durrell’s childhood on Corfu in the 1930s, the eccentric family (including his brother Lawrence, already writing serious fiction), and the creatures he collected and studied. Durrell’s natural history is precise; his comedy is warm and specific; the book is simultaneously about animals and about a particular form of English eccentricity and a particular Mediterranean summer. The most accessible book in this list and the best starting point for readers new to nature writing.
Adventure and Nature
Into Thin Air — Jon Krakauer (1997)
Krakauer’s account of the 1996 Everest disaster — the season’s climbing expeditions, the weather window that closed too late, the deaths that followed. Krakauer combines the physical reality of extreme altitude (the detailed account of what happens to the body and mind above 26,000 feet) with a journalist’s reconstruction of what went wrong. The most gripping book in this list and the most precise about the specific experience of being at altitude.
A Walk in the Woods — Bill Bryson (1998)
Bryson’s attempt on the Appalachian Trail — comic, informative, and genuinely affectionate about both the trail and the American wilderness it passes through. Bryson’s natural history (the ecology of the Appalachian forests, the threats to them, the history of the trail) is woven into the comedy of two middle-aged men discovering that hiking is harder than they thought.
The Ecological Novel
The Overstory — Richard Powers (2018)
The most important literary treatment of nature in recent American fiction — nine Americans whose lives are shaped by trees, in a novel that is simultaneously a work of natural history (the science of plant communication is accurately rendered), a work of ecological argument (trees have moral standing; their destruction is a moral catastrophe), and a Pulitzer Prize-winning work of literature. The most demanding book in this list and the most essential for anyone who wants to think seriously about the relationship between human and non-human life.
Reading Order
Start accessible: My Family and Other Animals → A Walk in the Woods → Into Thin Air.
Literary tradition: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek → The Snow Leopard → The Overstory.
Complete: My Family and Other Animals → Pilgrim at Tinker Creek → The Snow Leopard → A Walk in the Woods → Into Thin Air → The Overstory.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best nature writing book to start with?
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974) by Annie Dillard is the essential starting point for literary nature writing — a year spent in the Roanoke Valley of Virginia, paying sustained attention to the natural world and drawing from it philosophical and theological meditations. Dillard won the Pulitzer Prize for this book; her prose is the most ambitious in the genre. My Family and Other Animals (1956) by Gerald Durrell is the most accessible starting point — a childhood memoir of Corfu in the 1930s, funny and warm and full of precise natural history, written for anyone who loves animals.
What is Pilgrim at Tinker Creek about?
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974) by Annie Dillard follows a year the author spent living near Tinker Creek in Virginia's Roanoke Valley, paying sustained attention to what she saw: the violence and beauty of predation, the extravagance of reproduction, the specific textures of water and stone and light. Dillard's method is to take what she sees absolutely seriously — to treat the natural world as a theological text, a philosophical argument, a source of sustained wonder — and her prose alternates between precise natural description and wide-ranging meditation. Won the Pulitzer Prize.
What is My Family and Other Animals about?
My Family and Other Animals (1956) by Gerald Durrell is Durrell's memoir of his childhood on Corfu in the 1930s — the eccentric Durrell family (including his older brother Lawrence, who was already writing the Alexandria Quartet) and the animals Gerald collected (scorpions, geckos, owls, magpies, tortoises) and the naturalists who became his mentors. The book is simultaneously very funny about the Durrells and genuinely precise about natural history; Durrell (who became a professional zoologist and conservationist) observes the animals of Corfu with the same affectionate precision he brings to his family.
What is The Snow Leopard about?
The Snow Leopard (1978) by Peter Matthiessen is widely considered the greatest American nature writing of the twentieth century — a journey to the Himalayan plateau of northwest Nepal, ostensibly to study the Himalayan blue sheep but really a spiritual pilgrimage following the death of Matthiessen's wife. Matthiessen, a practicing Zen Buddhist, interweaves the physical journey (the altitude, the cold, the passes, the villages) with Buddhist teaching and grief. The snow leopard — almost certainly in the region, almost certainly never to be seen — is the book's central metaphor: the goal that justifies the journey, whether or not it is found. Won the National Book Award.
