My local library (Hi Islington reads!) issues several booklets a year with different book lists for its readers to discover and read widely, across many spectrums and topics. So this challenge holds their chosen titles to highlight the diversity in writing about nature.

On land and in the sea, in rain and shine, historical and tropical, indoors and out, wild and cultivated, nostalgic and political, here are 40 books that focus on nature.

Because... Libraries are the greatest invention of civilised society, hands up!