A list of novels specifically about nature, from the North American old growth forests to the Aussie outback, from the classics to the contemporary.
Ironically, one of the biggest motivators to get me off the couch and into nature is the very book I’m reading while on said couch.
Because when you find an inspiring novel set in a beautiful (or even harsh) natural landscape, there’s sometimes a fear of missing out that can set in. Like it’s a reminder that the world outside your four walls shares your very fibre and requires you inside it to keep its—and indeed your—heart beating. That’s nature for you; powerful. Almost as powerful as a solid fiction read about it.
Here are 8 of my favorite fiction books about nature, which will get you chasing fresh air in the great outdoors.
Overstory
by Richard Powers
At a bustling airport, weeks after the COVID-19 lockdowns ended, I picked up my copy of Overstory and read it cover to cover on the plane on my return home. This is honestly a masterpiece, with nine American stories intertwining like the roots of the trees they uniquely attempt to save from destruction.
I’d been away for 18 months and yearned to step foot among the beautiful forests we have on my hometown’s doorstep. This story (or stories) made me want to do that… and then hold a picket and loudly protest against old growth logging.
Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
A list of fiction books about nature would be incomplete without Thoreau’s memoir about his time in solitude in a secluded Walden Pond cabin. Decorated with wonderful, descriptive prose, Thoreau shows how his time alone teaches him to appreciate nature, its accompanying quiet and its unmatched beauty. This classic has helped so many people find solace and meaning in the outdoors.
The older prose makes reading a challenge for those new to 19th century fiction. But the vivid descriptions on the isolated landscape of Walden makes it so worth your time.
Limberlost
Set in northern Tasmania—one of Australia’s most secluded, water-bound regions—teenage Ned endures a long, hot summer in a river valley, while his two brothers remain lost at war and his father and sister struggle to keep the family’s orchard farm, Limberlost, from going under. Ned tries to ignore these pains pulling on him and his family during that summer, and in a tale that spans decades, we see how a teenager’s choices dictate the life he leads in the many years after.
Robbie Arnott is making a name for himself as a major voice in “wilderness fiction”, and with his two preceding successes, The Rain Heron and Flames, it’s not hard to see why.
Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
After a shipwreck leaves him bobbing on the Pacific Ocean for the better part of a year, Indian boy Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi, for short) learns to question the nature of reality and how his perceptions shape his beliefs while adrift. Oh, he’s also joined on his lifeboat by a 450-pound Bengal tiger.
I love the symbolism Martel uses with Pi lost at sea, with philosophical exploration often feeling like a journey on the open ocean, without a rudder or certainty you’ll ever be saved. This bestselling novel is a must-read fiction book about both the natural world and the nature of reality.
The Wild Inside: A Novel of Suspense
by Christine Carbo
Set in Glacier National Park, teenager Ted Systead was camping with his father beneath glistening stars and jagged mountains, relishing the experience until a grizzly bear attacked, dragged and killed his father. Twenty years on and Ted is now a Special Agent for the Department of the Interior, called in to investigate an eerily similar incident from that harrowing night—except the victim had been bound to a tree before being mauled.
Book one of Carbo’s enthralling Glacier Mysteries is beyond a mere heart-stopper, that’ll have you searching for clues until its wild end, but is also a reminder of the brutal outcomes when nature and man merge.
Once There Were Wolves
by Charlotte McConaghy
Inti Flynn, joined by her twin sister Aggie, leads a team of biologists to reintroduce fourteen gray wolves into the remote Scottish Highlands. The forest is dying, and despite fierce opposition from the neighbouring Scottish town, Flynn attempts to settle these wild animals into a new habitat with the clock ticking. But it’s when a farmer is killed, and the finger pointed at her misunderstood wolves, that Flynn makes reckless decisions to save them.
I couldn’t put this down. McConaghy is widely known for her bestseller Migrations, but it’s Once There Were Wolves that really hits the mark for me as one of the best fiction books about nature in the 2020s. But by all means, go out and by both.
The Call of the Wild
by Jack London
Finally, a dog as the protagonist! Set in the Yukon in Canada, when sled dogs were in high demand, the story follows Buck during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush. Buck has an unbreakable bond with his human owner until he is kidnapped and forced to a life of servitude as a sled dog. Through all man’s wickedness, however, we see friendship and kindness emerge as heroes—along with the heroic Buck, of course.
Now a major motion film, The Call of the Wild is close to a true story, with London recalling his real-life experiences with a dog he met while adventuring in the Yukon.
The Dry
by Jane Harper
Australian Federal Policeman Aaron Faulk returns to his regional hometown for a funeral, which sees him involved in an unofficial investigation into the incident that saw an entire young family dead. The return home brings back memories of his childhood and the tragic death of a teenage girl. With the farming town suffering from drought, we see Faulk navigate the lawless culture of regional society while the baron landscape’s deathly heat acts as a tinderbox ready to ignite.
Thank Jane Harper for setting the outback noir trend, because there are few novels out there that not only describes the harsh Aussie landscape than The Dry, but that also leverages the brutal and baron environment to churn and quite literally burn its characters.
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