Celebrate Spring with These Nature Nonfiction Reads

Springtime is in full swing—here in the northern hemisphere, anyway—and it’s quite glorious. The flowers are blooming, the temperatures are rising, and expanded daytime hours mean better light for reading. We sensed that it was time for a roundup of recent nature nonfiction.
 
Southern hemisphere readers, be glad of heart—this collection is for you, too. In fact, the books below represent a kind of high-altitude overview of recent nature writing from around the world. Each has a publication date of 2020 or afterward.
 
The range of topics and themes collected below makes for some fantastic browsing and clicking. Think of it as a leisurely scroll through the wonders of nature. We’ve got books on the physics of the world’s oceans and the astonishing ecosystems below. Books about geological deep time and how the Earth came to life. Books about bears and eels, mushrooms and salt lakes, British birds and Siberian tigers.
 
Also look for several essay collections, unique memoirs, and interesting variations—a book on Black nature writing, for instance, or a birding diary from a very famous novelist. Ecologist Suzanne Simard, author of Finding the Mother Tree, is back with some potentially planet-saving observations in When the Forest Breathes. On the lighter side of things, check out this collection of law-breaking animals.
 
Click on the book cover images for more information about each title. You can also use the Want to Read button to add interesting leads to your digital shelf.