If the thought of leaving your house, going for a walk, maybe even trying wild swimming, is all too much for you, reach for the bookshelves. Our green and blue spaces have taken root in memoirs and non-fiction that reveal again and again the well-being benefits of our natural world.

We’ve listed a handful of our favorite reads (you can find more over in our Nature Edit on Bookshop): We’ve recommended Wintering to countless friends and family members for whom this may not be their favorite season, while H is for Hawk was the book everyone got to years ago that we got to last year and then understood why. We’ve played around with more tricks to rewild ourselves with ideas from Simon Barnes and Sarah Stirling. And we’ve followed the transformative story of Raynor Winn who walked a coastal path and changed her life and that of her partner.

So curl up indoors with one of these books and discover the power of nature to reconnect you with the world out there and the world in you.

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WINTERING: THE POWER OF REST AND RETREAT IN DIFFICULT TIMES

If you needed a reading cure to get you through the winter months, this would be it. Katherine May’s beautifully written book remakes the dark days into times of essential pause and restoration.

THE NATURE REMEDY: A RESTORATIVE GUIDE TO THE NATURAL WORLD

Curator of trees at Thorp Perrow, Faith Douglas brings us a compendium of remedies from across the natural world. Like understanding the night skies, applying color therapy to the natural landscape, and knowing how to forest bathe (recommended dosage of two hours each week). For when you don’t know how to access nature, but you know you need to.

THE WELL GARDENED MIND: REDISCOVERING NATURE IN THE MODERN WORLD

This book gives us the science behind the instinct that says gardening in particular, and being in nature more widely, is good for us. Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Sue Stuart-Smith takes us through all aspects of why gardening matters in a moment when anxiety and depression are increasing and we find ourselves ever more separate from the natural world.

REWILD YOURSELF: 23 SPELLBINDING WAYS TO MAKE NATURE MORE VISIBLE

Simon Barnes opens the world to us in this beguiling book of ‘personal rewilding’. With simple, though magical, techniques, he makes the wild visible, evoking our inherent connection with nature; for less than 1 percent of our existence we have been civilized, and the wild is deep in our ancestral souls and genetic make-ups.

REWILD YOUR LIFE: 52 WAYS TO RECONNECT WITH NATURE

Know you need to find your way back to nature, but have no idea how to do it? Born of a simple New Year’s wish to see more sunsets, in this book outdoor writer Sarah Stirling gives you 52 ideas to return you back to the wild.

FFOREST: BEING, DOING & MAKING IN NATURE

This book explains the philosophy of one of our favourite places to lose ourselves, fforest, with founder Sian Tucker taking us through all the ways we can reconnect with nature, wherever we are. Illustrated with details from fforest, Tucker teaches the skills and knowledge that we once would have known that we have since lost.

THE SALT PATH

When you think all hope is lost, pick up The Salt Path (or the similarly healing follow-up memoir The Wild Silence). Raynor Winn lost her family home and received a life-threatening diagnosis for her beloved husband Moth within days of each other. Now homeless and heartbroken, the couple finds a way forwards walking the 630-mile South West Coast Path. The breathtaking scenery, land underfoot, and shifting weather becomes the source of their healing and maybe even a way back.

H IS FOR HAWK

We were enthralled reading this memoir; Macdonald wrestles with the abject grief she feels after the sudden loss of her father by training a goshawk. A book to look to for coping with loss, reassuring us that it’s ok to find ourselves again, in whatever seemingly idiosyncratic ways feel right at the time.

WILD AT HEART: AMERICA'S TURBULENT RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE, FROM EXPLORATION TO REDEMPTION

Wild at Heart is a deep-dive into ecological history. It’s an ambitious narrative tracking our shifting relationship with the natural world from indigenous culture’s respect for the land to colonialists fear of it, the mass pollution and sickness that came with industrialization, and the awakening of the environmental movement. Outwater makes abundantly clear the interdependence of humanity and nature as the one consistent thread throughout it all.

SHE EXPLORES

Gale Straub starts this beautifully illustrated collection with a question: “Who do you picture when you think of an outdoorswoman.” This book crafts a nuanced idea of who women are — and who they can be — as they live life outdoors: enthusiasts, creatives, professionals, nomads, transplants, and advocates. This collection of stories shows us the way we can be.

As our understanding of the importance of nature increases, so too do the number of great books on the subject, particularly in terms of its effects on our mental and emotional wellbeing. We’ve included just a handful here, but there are others that we’re hoping to get to in the coming weeks that we’ve included in our Bookshop. Our Nature Edit includes books that we’ll talk about here soon, as well as others recommended to us that are on our reading lists. We hope browsing these shelves you’ll find one or two to help bring more nature into your own life.

BROWSE OUR BOOKSHOP SHELVES

We’re always on the lookout for more Culture Therapy ideas, those books, podcasts, TV shows, films, artists, music, and magazines to seek out when we’re searching for something to inspire, support, and soothe. Let us know what you love and help us find more ways to navigate this complicated world of ours.

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