The Wainwright Prize is my favourite nonfiction prize and one I follow closely because I tend to read many of the nature books released in the UK in any given year, as well as some popular science. I was honoured to be part of an “academy” of bloggers, booksellers, previous year judges and previously shortlisted authors asked to comment on a very long list of publisher submissions. These votes were used to help arrive at the longlists. This year, the categories have been subtly adjusted to avoid the problem there has been the past two years of certain books falling between the cracks because they are set between the UK and overseas. Now there is a clearer thematic division between narrative nature writing and conservation, without the UK/global dichotomy. For the first year, there is also a prize for children’s books on nature (fiction and non-). Several of my picks made it through to each longlist.

I’m snatching a few moments between a bistro dinner and seal watching out our B&B window on the tiny island of Berneray to put this together. Below I give brief comments based on what I’ve read so far and would like to read.

The 2022 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing longlist:

• Otherlands: A World in the Making, Dr Thomas Halliday (Allen Lane)
• 12 Birds to Save Your Life: Nature’s Lessons in Happiness, Charlie Corbett (Penguin)
• Goshawk Summer: A New Forest Season Unlike Any Other, James Aldred (Elliott & Thompson)
• Much Ado About Mothing: A year intoxicated by Britain’s rare and remarkable moths, James Lowen (Bloomsbury Wildlife)
• On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging, Nicola Chester (Chelsea Green Publishing)
• Shadowlands: A Journey through Lost Britain, Matthew Green (Faber & Faber)
• The Heeding, Rob Cowen, illustrated by Nick Hayes (Elliott & Thompson)
• The Instant, Amy Liptrot (Canongate)
• The Sea Is Not Made of Water: Life Between the Tides, Adam Nicolson (William Collins)
• The Trespasser’s Companion, Nick Hayes (Bloomsbury)
• Time on Rock: A Climber’s Route into the Mountains, Anna Fleming (Canongate)
• Wild Green Wonders: A Life in Nature, Patrick Barkham (Guardian Faber Publishing)

My thoughts: I have read and loved Goshawk Summer and On Gallows Down—the latter would be my overall top recommendation for the prize for how it fuses place-based memoir and passion for protecting wildlife and landscapes. I’ve also read The Heeding and The Instant but had mixed feelings about both. I’ve had the Barkham, Halliday and Nicolson out from the library but realized I only wanted to skim them – they were too dense (or, in the case of Barkham’s collected columns, too disparate) to read right through. I have a review copy of Much Ado about Mothing and have been finding it a delightful nature quest. I don’t know much about the four other titles, but would gladly read them if I found copies.

The 2022 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation:

• Abundance: Nature in Recovery, Karen Lloyd (Bloomsbury Wildlife)
• Aurochs and Auks, John Burnside (Little Toller Books)
• Climate Change Is Racist, Jeremy Williams and Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu (Icon Books)
• Divide: The relationship crisis between town and country, Anna Jones (Kyle Books)
• Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them, Dan Saladino (Jonathan Cape)
• Our Biggest Experiment: A History of the Climate Crisis, Alice Bell (Bloomsbury Sigma)
• Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet, George Monbiot (Allen Lane)
• Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse, Dave Goulson (Vintage)
• Soundings: Journeys in the Company of Whales, Doreen Cunningham (Virago)
• The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World, Oliver Milman (Atlantic Books)
• The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth, Ben Rawlence (Jonathan Cape)
• The Women Who Saved the English Countryside, Matthew Kelly (Yale University Press)
• Wild Fell: Fighting for nature on a Lake District hill farm, Lee Schofield (Doubleday)

My thoughts: I’ve only read Aurochs and Auks and Silent Earth (which I reviewed for Shelf Awareness and would gladly see win the prize for shedding light on an aspect of the biodiversity crisis that’s not talked about enough; curious to longlist a second book, the Milman, on the same topic, though). I’d happily read any of the others. I’m particularly interested in Soundings, which I already have on my e-reader from a review opportunity I passed up.

The 2022 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Children’s Writing on Nature and Conservation longlist:

• A Bug’s World, Dr Erica McAlister, illustrated by Stephanie Fizer Coleman (Wren & Rook)
• Around the World in 80 Trees, Ben Lerwill, illustrated by Kaja Kajfež (Welbeck)
• By Rowan and Yew, Melissa Harrison (Chicken House)
• Julia and the Shark, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, illustrated by Tom de Freston (Orion Children’s Books)
• Nests, Susan Ogilvy (Particular Books)
• October, October, Katya Balen, illustrated by Angela Harding (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
• One World: 24 Hours on Planet Earth, Nicola Davies, illustrated by Jenni Desmond (Walker Books)
• Spark, Mitch Johnson (Orion Children’s Books)
• The Biggest Footprint: Eight billion humans. One clumsy giant, Rob Sears, illustrated by Tom Sears (Canongate)
• The Summer We Turned Green, William Sutcliffe (Bloomsbury YA)
• Twitch, M.G. Leonard (Walker Books)
• Wild Child: A Journey Through Nature, Dara McAnulty, illustrated by Barry Falls (Macmillan Children’s Books)

My thoughts: To my surprise, I’d read two of these: October, October and Wild Child. I’ve also read the Harrison novel that preceded this one. I’ve read other novels by Hargrave so would read this one, too. I’m unlikely to seek out any of the rest, but I’m pleased this new prize exists. If children are our only hope for surviving the climate crisis as a species, then we have to get them on-side as early as possible.

Overall thoughts: Pretty good representation of women on the lists! Just one person of colour this year, I think. A good mix of subjects; not too much repetition. (My husband (an entomologist) was pleased to see four books about insects.) And a decent balance of veteran versus new writers. I look forward to following the process and seeing who makes it through to the shortlist (on 28 July, with the winners to be announced on 7 September).

Have you read anything from the Wainwright Prize longlists?

Which of these books take your fancy?