Book Recommendations 2023 | Nature Inspired
As I’ve mentioned before, I get a lot of inspiration for my works from reading. A lot of the books I read and recommend are nature inspired or have an element of nature in them somehow. It’s been a while since I shared some favourites, so I thought I’d share some that I’ve enjoyed this year…
Bewilderment | Richard Powers
"On the concrete, the shadows of a nearby ironwood tree played against a field of sandy sunlight. They looked like layers of Japanese ink paintings on coarse paper, floating over one another in ghostly animation.
The moon in the clear sky turned the Earth into a blue-gray aquatint.
Strip of twilight between permanent noon and midnight.”
After reading The Overstory by the same author, which was in my last book recommendations post I did, I’ve since read a couple more, including Bewilderment. Safe to say I enjoyed this just as much. The story is set around a widowed father and his son and centres around neurodivergence, astrobiology and environmental issues. I didn’t actually highlight that many descriptive bits in this and found parts of it quite sad, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life | William Finnegan
“like half-remembered black-and-white dreams from a world left behind.
It was tinted—not pigmented—a pale yellow. Transparent tints.
The twilight deepened. The spray lifting off the tops still had a crimson sunset tinge.”
I’m not a surfer but I enjoyed the adventures of William Finnegan roaming the world to fulfil his obsession of catching the next wave, sharing surf culture, near drownings and relationships along the way. You definitely don’t have to be a surfer or know a thing about surfing before reading this book to enjoy this memoir - I also enjoyed it for the travel elements as you journey the world from the comfort of your home.
Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories | Algernon Blackwood
“The lake, white beneath a coating of mist, the islands rising darkly out of it like objects packed in wool; and patches of snow beyond among the clearer spaces of the Bush—everything cold, still, waiting for the sun.
On the edge of the woods, looking out across a large sheet of water in front of them, dotted with pine-clad islands of all describable shapes and sizes.
The full moon rose up in the east and covered the river and the plain of shouting willows with a light like the day.”
A collection of short stories surrounding the supernatural and unexplained. This was actually recommended to me by someone who saw my other book recommendations - thank you! They’re all weird and wonderful, but I especially loved The Wendigo and The Man Whom The Trees Loved. A lot of the stories encompass the natural elements; the moon, wind, snow etc. but in an eerie way.
The Grampian Quartet: The Quarry Wood: The Weatherhouse: A Pass in the Grampians: The Living Mountain | Nan Shepherd and Roderick Watson
“White nights, all sky, with the moon riding overhead and round her half the heaven swirling in an enormous broch; moonless nights when Orion strode up-valley and the furred and fallen leaves glistered on the silken roads.
The country was indigo, its austere line running out against a burnished sky to the clear enamelled blue of the mountains. Rain at sea, a soft trail of it like grey gauze blowing in the wind. And an enormous sky, where clouds of shadowed ivory and lustrous hyacinth filed by in vast processional; yet were no more than swayed in the wash of shallows when the eye plunged past them to the unfathomable gulfs of blue beyond.”
Initially I was just looking to get The Living Mountain, as it had come up so many times and I still hadn’t read it. However, I ended up getting The Grampian Quartet and I’m glad I did, Nan Shepherd was a brilliant writer in both fiction and non fiction. In all of the novels Shepherd intertwines her love of the Scottish landscape. The Doric dialect can take a bit to get to grips with if you’re not familiar with it but I enjoyed this element and felt it added to the settings.
The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd | Merryn Glover
“Above us, the sky slowly turned to a creamy mother-of-pearl, harbouring all the tints of rose, fawn and grey, translucent clouds suspended like fragments of muslin.
Stretching in every direction, the mountains are billowing round tents of stone, rising in waves and walls of granite, falling in cliffs and corries, basking in light. Snow clings in deep crevices; burns are seams of silver in the grey and green; cloud shadows glide like sea galleons and mythical beasts across the slopes.”
Merryn Glover’s, The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd, was recommended to me by another artist after sharing that I’d read The Living Mountain. She follows in the footsteps of Nan Shepherd, exploring the same landscape, sharing her own experiences through mountain wanderings and offering insight into the Cairngorms and its history along the way.
Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time in the Scottish Highlands | Annie Worsley
“I notice a long band of indigo thickening out to the west. Only moments ago, the horizon was a thin pencil line, topped by the faint shapes of distant islands, but now it writhes.
The shifting moods of early autumn are revealed again and again by rapidly changing colours. Soon after the equinox the once purpled hills turn the colours of burnt toast and the fierce orange of cinder toffee. Meadows turn from golden-blonde to silver-grey, lanced here and there by tall shards of bronze and copper.”
Continuing the Scottish landscape theme, I’m currently reading, Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time in the Scottish Highlands by Annie Worsley. It came up as a recommendation after reading the above book, and since I’d enjoyed the last couple of reads surrounding Scotland, I thought I’d give it a go. Again, heavily nature themed after Annie’s move to the west coast of Scotland where she takes on a croft and embraces the elemental forces that come with life in the Highlands. I’ve not quite finished yet but I can recommend this brilliant piece of nature-writing.
Please let me know if you have any book recommendations. I mostly always have a few others on my list but I’m always on the lookout for more.
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