100 Books Like Rebugging the Planet

I have loved insects and other wildlife for all of my life. I am now a professor of Biology at the University of Sussex, UK, specializing in bee ecology. I have published more than 400 scientific articles on the ecology and conservation of bumblebees and other insects, plus seven books, including the Sunday Times bestsellers A Sting in the Tale (2013), The Garden Jungle (2019), and Silent Earth (2021). They’ve been translated into 20 languages and sold over half a million copies. I also founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2006, a charity that has grown to 12,000 members. 

I developed my love for landscape growing up in Sussex and studying at Oxford University. For several decades, I have worked as an academic geographer in New Zealand. It’s a country dramatically transformed from forest and wetland to introduced grasslands. These were created originally to supply British consumers with primary products, although nowadays, markets in East Asia are important. Living at the edge of the world has long turned my interests toward environmental histories and global environmental futures. How can we live and eat more sustainably, how can we use the land and water we have more responsibly, and how can we restore biodiversity in ravaged landscapes for future generations? 

I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t captured by nature. Growing up in coastal Devon, UK, I loved immersing myself, sometimes literally, in the landscapes and nature of my surroundings. It was inevitable I would become a biologist, and I think also inevitable that I would be drawn to the field of ecology, the study of the relationships that exist within nature. I have expanded my horizons over the past decade or so, developing a deep love for the landscapes and nature of southern Africa, but the rockpools and lanes of Devon are never far away.

I have loved insects and other wildlife for all of my life. I am now a professor of Biology at the University of Sussex, UK, specializing in bee ecology. I have published more than 400 scientific articles on the ecology and conservation of bumblebees and other insects, plus seven books, including the Sunday Times bestsellers A Sting in the Tale (2013), The Garden Jungle (2019), and Silent Earth (2021). They’ve been translated into 20 languages and sold over half a million copies. I also founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2006, a charity that has grown to 12,000 members. 

I am an ornithologist who studies the myriad ways in which we affect birds and they, in turn, affect us. I’ve conducted field research for over four decades, focusing mainly on the behavior, ecology, and evolution of corvids—crows, ravens, jays, and their relatives. Through these birds I’ve discovered how our settlements, agriculture, and recreation play into their hands, often to the detriment of less adaptable species. As a professor of wildlife science for 25 years, I’ve mentored many graduate and undergraduate students and written hundreds of technical articles. In my writing for popular audiences I aim to celebrate the successful birds that share our world and raise awareness of those we are driving toward extinction.

I’ve been an ecologist, scientist, organic farmer and gardener for over thirty years. I care deeply about our natural world and the devastating loss of biodiversity that is happening around the globe. As a long-term educator, I want to encourage people to diversify their gardens and lawns and become passionate observers of nature and our beautiful planet. We often throw our hands up because we don’t feel like we can do anything to help rectify environmental problems. But this is something we can all participate in whether we have land or not, but especially if we have access to land.  

I’ve been an ecologist, scientist, organic farmer and gardener for over thirty years. I care deeply about our natural world and the devastating loss of biodiversity that is happening around the globe. As a long-term educator, I want to encourage people to diversify their gardens and lawns and become passionate observers of nature and our beautiful planet. We often throw our hands up because we don’t feel like we can do anything to help rectify environmental problems. But this is something we can all participate in whether we have land or not, but especially if we have access to land.  

I am the Illustrator of 45 books for kids, 9 of which I authored as well. I have always been attracted to joyful nonsense. I am drawn to books and writings that turn norms on their heads. From the time I was super young, my favorite poem has been Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” with its delightful slithy toves gyring and gimbling in the wabe. In fact, of the books I’ve written to date, every one has had some kind of nonsensical element to it.

I’ve always been interested in the natural world. I grew up seeing the birds, raccoons, and deer that lived in the woods near my home in Western Pennsylvania. But over the years I began watching smaller things more carefully: tiny creatures with many legs—or no legs at all! I learned that even though earthworms are blind they can sense light. I realized that among “identical” ants, some behaved differently. I found out that if I was gentle, honeybees didn’t mind being petted. Even if we think they’re icky, we owe these tiny creatures our understanding and compassion.

I’ve been fascinated with the natural world for as long as I can remember, spending many happy hours in my childhood exploring forests, splashing in creeks, and hiking in parks with my family. Devouring books from the local library and participating in workshops at our local science center fed my interest and built a strong foundation in science. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more and more fascinated by the tension between science’s goal to neatly classify and nature’s riotous complexity. It’s the exceptions, the grey, that keep me interested and draw in my students. I am an experienced science teacher and award-winning author of books for teachers and kids.