13 Books to Help You Reconnect With Nature
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We all know that spending time in nature is good for us—it can help boost our mood, as well as lower our stress levels. But with the fast pace of modern-day life (and our addiction to our phones), many of us don’t prioritize being outside as much as we should. Here, Vogue picks out the best nature books that’ll help you to reconnect with Mother Earth.
As a top London barrister, Sarah Langford thought she would always be a city dweller—until a series of events forced her to move to Suffolk with her family in 2017, the beginning of a journey that would see her discover regenerative agronomy and travel around Britain meeting farmers who are reimagining the dominant model for agriculture. “I never expected, or wanted, to live a life on the land,” writes Langford in the introduction to Rooted, which is both poetically written and filled with compelling data about modern-day farming. “But then fate took me there and taught me lessons I never knew I needed to learn.”
When Isabella Tree and her husband inherited a 3,000-acre farm in West Sussex, England, it wasn’t long before they had to rethink the unsustainable farming practices that were running the health of their land, quite literally, into the ground—along with their finances. It was only when they decided to radically rethink traditions and “rewild” their land that something wonderful happened: Not only did the wildlife come back, but biodiversity and soil health flourished. The aptly named Tree sees rewilding as the missing link that will guarantee the future of our ecosystems—a fascinating read.
In his self-styled love letter to the natural world, the renowned peace activist and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh shares why the happiness and health of our planet is intricately related to the happiness of the human mind. Key to that is encouraging the practice of mindfulness and inculcating a spiritual awareness of the world around you, so that you ultimately let go of the concept of “the environment” and embrace the notion that human life is not a separate entity. Only then, Hanh argues, can we begin to repair our relationship with our natural world and fight the destruction being wrought by climate change.
Written by a Native American botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer, whose lineage is of the Potawatomi people, this book is an essential introduction to the opportunities of environmental regeneration. By weaving the wisdom passed down from elders, who believe that nature is our greatest teacher, with Kimmerer’s scientific studies as a professor of environmental and forest biology, it offers us tangible lessons we can learn when we turn our focus to the plant kingdom.
Agroecologist Nicole Masters’s central thesis revolves around how the future of our natural ecosystems, wildlife, and man’s food production systems depend upon the health and care of our soil. As intensive farming, pesticides, and chemical pollution wreak havoc worldwide, the natural world, as we all know, is paying the price. This book presents strategies for regeneration in the race against time and proves that soil should no longer be seen as dirt, but rather a vital source of nutrients and nourishment.
