9 Books That Will Help You Reconnect With Nature!

I’ve recommended this book to everyone who’s asked me for a book recommendation in the last couple of years since I first read it. My Husband And Other Animals is the most informative, fun and adventurous collection of short stories by Janaki Lenin, a conservationist, journalist and producer, about her life with her husband Rom Whitaker—herpetologist and founder of the Madras Snake Park and Madras Crocodile Bank—and the incredible world they have built for themselves in South India. (Move over celeb couples, this is the only true power couple out there.) The book is filled with stories of them training crocodiles to perform tricks for treats, meeting a tribe where women have rescued snakes for centuries, spotting big cats in their backyard, and so much more! Also, if you’re done reading it and want more of where that came from, there’s also a Volume 2!

The more you learn about nature, you realise how omnipresent it is—you’ll find pockets of it even in the most urbanised of spaces. The most populated cities across the Indian subcontinent were once home to vast ecosystems with innumerable species of flora and fauna, which have been erased over centuries. Indica by Pranay Lal is a book that takes you across that very rich history of nature in the subcontinent both in urban landscapes and wild ones. From tectonic events that occurred 88 million years ago to the current day, Lal has documented our homeland’s natural history in incredible detail. Be it the story of Rajasauras, an Indian dinosaur, the 70-million-years-old dinosaur eggs found in Mumbai, or how the monsoons in Bangalore are related to a species of fish that is only found in Kerala and Madagascar; the book is full of mind-blowing facts and discoveries about the natural history of our country, some of which feel like straight-up science fiction.

You’ve obviously heard of Jim Corbett, the colonial-era hunter and naturalist after whom one of India’s biggest national parks is named. Corbett’s stories from his legendary hunting expeditions for man-eating predators have majorly been distributed in three books: Man-Eaters of Kumaon, The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag and The Temple Tiger and More Man-Eaters of Kumaon. The Jim Corbett omnibus is a collection of the best stories handpicked from all three, and is the only book I’d recommend if you want to read Corbett. My favorite thing about these stories is that despite being a century old, they’re still just as enthralling to read; Corbett’s prose is free-flowing and ripe with with the minutest details, sights and sounds of his expeditions in the wild, and it feels like you’ve been teleported right into a hunting troop with him.

You’ve probably seen the film, but Life Of Pi the book that has so much to give. For the uninitiated, it is the story of "Pi" Patel, a Tamil boy from Pondicherry, who survives 227 days in the Pacific ocean following a shipwreck, stranded on a boat with a tiger named Richard Parker. While the book is a fantasy adventure and has been spruced up with lots of magic realism, the underlying theme of a protagonist finding their way in life and battling against all odds to survive in nature makes it unputdownable. 

If you liked the first season of The Last Of Us and went down a rabbit hole of researching fungi like I did, Entangled Life is THE book for you to read. Published in 2021, this book instantly became a smash hit and is one of the best science books to have come out in recent years. The author, Merlin Sheldrake, a biologist with a PhD in Tropical Ecology, has described in vivid detail the hidden world of these fascinating organisms that largely stay out of sight, and how they literally change life as we know it, from making soil to inducing visions, manipulating behaviours and lots more. The book is also filled with some very cool illustrations and photos, but the audio book is great as well.

Like most people from my generation, I know very little about trees. Sure, I know an Amaltas or a Eucalyptus when I see one, but I’m nowhere near the older people from my family who’d be able to name almost every tree when we’d go out in the forests when I was young. Jungle Trees of Central India is quite literally a field guide that can help you identify almost every tree you can come across in the region. The book is filled with over 2,000 photographs, and thumbnail keys to all the barks, flowers, fruit and leaves that can help you identify a tree by just looking at it. It’s also got everything you’d need to know about the tree, including not only its scientific name but also its name in regional Indian languages, medicinal properties, edible/industrial uses, fun trivia, etc. This is a book that would make you want to get out of your home and go treespotting, and a book that you’d want to carry with you everywhere you go.

Another book that was made into a brilliant film starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Where the Crawdads Sing is the story of an abandoned young girl named Kya who was raised by the marshlands of southern USA in the 1950s. The book follows two timelines that slowly converge together: one where Kya grows up in the absence of a family and the companionship of nature, and another where she is suspected for the murder of her former partner as an adult. Earthy, gruesome, warm and at times even raging, Where the Crawdads Sing is a mystery/coming-of-age story deeply intertwined with the human–nature connection. The author Delia Owens is a zoologist and conservationist herself, who moved to Africa for conservation work decades ago, and her intricate knowledge and love for nature is both abundantly visible in the book and infectious.

It’s impossible for me to talk about books and not touch on philosophy. While Walden is technically an autobiography by Thoreau, the book is laced with the transcendental school of thought he came from. The book takes you through Throeau’s time spent in a cabin in the woods as he tried to immerse himself in nature and get a clear understanding of human civilisation through a lifestyle of simple living, self-sufficiency and sustainability. 

Amitav Ghosh’s works of fiction need no introduction. While the author has written some of the most riveting novels that you should read if you’re looking for more books with an underlying theme of nature, it’s this non-fiction book by him that is the most erudite meditation on the times we live in. In The Great Derangement, Ghosh takes us through the workings of literature, history and politics (and the lack thereof) that allow us to grasp the scale of climate change and its horrors that await us. It is an unabashed work of non-fiction that gives you a yet unseen narrative on climate change. If you’re looking for non-fiction recommendations, you might want to pick it up this summer (which might very well be the coldest summer for the rest of our lives). 

Often, when discussing things related to nature with my friends from big cities, I’m met with the question “Oh, so are you into nature and stuff?” And it made me realise how our disconnect with nature has widened to such an extent that it has sort of been reduced to an esoteric interest/hobby. Being ‘into’ nature should at least be a prerequisite to exist in harmony with it, if not a responsibility given the state of climate change and its destructive impact on our ecosystems. My only hope with recommending these books is that they would bring you closer to nature and the species that inhabit this wonderful planet with us, no matter where you live.

Happy reading, fellow Earthlings!