Merlin Sheldrake

Every year the Royal Society, the world’s oldest independent scientific academy, awards a prize for the best new popular science book. Here, Luke O’Neill—Professor of Biochemistry at Trinity College, Dublin, and chair of the 2021 judging panel—discusses the latest shortlist: six new popular science books that are topical, accessible and infinitely interesting.

Many of us are increasingly alarmed at the damage human beings have done—and continue to do—to the natural world and would love to be better informed about what we need to do to protect our precious environment. Fortunately, every year, the Wainwright Prize picks out the best writing on global conservation—books that are not only informative but highly readable. Here, British journalist Charlotte Smith, chair of the judging panel, talks us through the books that made the 2021 shortlist and why it’s worth reading all of them.

Charles Foster—the barrister, ethicist and bestselling author of Being a Beast—selects five brilliant nature books that reflect a new boom in nature writing in 2020, many of which ask us to examine more closely the interconnectedness of all things.