If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, you probably know that I am really into nature writing. The natural world is so important to me, and a huge part of my life as a professional in the horticulture industry. I’m taking it even further this year by (finally) starting my degree in plant science too!

So what is the Wainwright Prize?

From The Wainwright Prize website:

The Wainwright Prizes are the UK’s foremost awards celebrating nature, conservation, and environmental writing. Named in honour of Alfred Wainwright, writer, walker, and champion of the outdoors, the prizes were established in 2013 to spotlight the growing genre of nature writing and inspire readers to connect more deeply with the natural world.

The prize has grown each year, from a single awarding category to 6 in 2025:

• The Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing
• The Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing
• The Wainwright Prize for Illustrative Books
• The Children’s Wainwright Prize for Fiction
• The Children’s Wainwright Prize for Non-Fiction​
• The Children’s Wainwright Prize for Picture Books

Each year the longlists for the prizes are shared in July, with shortlists following in August before the winners are announced in September.

What is my challenge?

To read as many of the Wainwright books as I can.
That’s it really. This is going to be a long-term thing, as in multiple years, because I am not just reading this year’s books, but I want to go back and read at least the winners from previous years.

This year’s tbr selection is the longest, as I have been following it extra closely, but I have populated the below tbr going back to 2018 for now. Once I reach that point, I will read further back if I can find the information, or select more from those same years, but I think it is a good starting point for me in terms of the number of books and my personal interests.

I have a lot of the books on my bookshelves already, which is great, and I’ve read a decent number so far for not trying (aside from 2025’s books). I don’t have reviews of all I have read yet, so I definitely need to go back and write them up!

I don’t plan on reading in a particular order, and I have a feeling I might add or subtract a book here and there as I go. I haven’t put in the entire shortlist for 2025 because I didn’t want to be too ambitious with only a couple of months to go (when I first made my list), so if a book I don’t have here wins, that will be added too.

If I have reviewed one of the books on this blog, the book title will link to it.

My Wainwright TBR

2025 Nature Writing

• Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton. Longlisted. Read.
• The Possibility of Tenderness by Jason Allen-Paisant. Shortlisted.
• Our Oaken Bones by Merlin Hanbury-Tenison. Shortlisted.
• Ingrained by Callum Robinson. Shortlisted.
• The Company of Owls by Polly Atkin. Longlisted. Read.
• England by John Lewis-Stempel. Longlisted.

2025 Conservation Writing

• A Training School for Elephants by Sophy Roberts. Shortlisted.
• Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane. Shortlisted.
• What the Wild Sea Can Be by Helen Scales. Shortlisted.
• Nature Needs You by Hannah Bourne-Taylor. Longlisted. Read.
• to have or to hold by Sophie Pavelle. Longlisted. Read.
• Peatlands by Alys Fowler. Longlisted.

2025 Children’s Fiction

• Land of the Last Wildcat by Lui Sit. Shortlisted. Read.
• Turtle Moon by Hannah Gold. Shortlisted.

2024 Books

Nature Writing:

• Late Light by Michael Malay. Winner.
• Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging by Jessica J. Lee. Shortlisted.
• The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing. Shortlisted.

Conservation Writing:

• Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World by Helen Czerski. Winner. Read.
• Nature’s Ghosts by Sophie Yeo. Shortlisted.
• Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant. Shortlisted.

Children’s Writing:

• Foxlight by Katya Balen. Winner.

2023 Books

Nature Writing:

• The Flow: Rivers, Water and Wildness by Amy-Jane Beer. Winner.
• Belonging: Natural histories of place, identity and home by Amanda Thompson. Shortlisted.

Conservation Writing:

• The Lost Rainforests of Britain by Guy Shrubsole. Winner. Read.

Children’s Writing:

• Leila and the Blue Fox by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. Winner.

2022 Books

Nature Writing:

• Goshawk Summer by James Aldred. Winner.
• Otherlands by Thomas Halliday. Shortlisted.

Conservation Writing:

• Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino. Winner.

Children’s Writing:

• October, October by Katya Balen. Shortlisted.

2021 Books

Nature Writing

• English Pastoral by James Rebanks. Winner.
• Seed to Dust by Marc Hamer. Shortlisted.

Conservation Writing:

• Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. Winner. Read.
• A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough. Shortlisted. Read.

2020 Books

Nature Writing:

• Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty. Winner.
• Wanderland by Jini Reddy. Shortlisted.

Conservation Writing:

• Rebirding by Benedict Macdonald. Winner.

2019 Book

Overall Winner:

• Underland by Robert Macfarlane.

2018 Book

Overall Winner:

• The Seabird’s Cry by Adam Nicolson

So there we go! What do you think of this prize? What do you think of my reading project?
I’ll make update posts in the future, though I am not sure of the frequency yet, and I’ll be copying this over as its own page in my header.