Books like The Lie of the Land — picked by fans

It’s a fantastic re-imagining of David Copperfield, which I enjoyed much more than the original. It taught me a lot about a side of the USA which, as a Brit, I had never given much thought to. The characters were fresh and engaging - even when they were unlikeable - and I became really invested in them.
I know this is a book I’ll re-read and it might even tempt me to have another try at the Dickens,

Judith Allnatt thoroughly immerses us in the world of Patty, wife of the Northamptonshire poet John Clare, in this moving novel. The story begins with Patty greeting John on his return from an asylum, only to find that he believes she's his childhood sweetheart, Mary. Patty must keep the family going, despite rural poverty, the risks of poaching and the enclosure of land, and her husband's increasing delusions. Offsetting the grimness of this we go back to earlier scenes, when the pair first met and fell in love. The novel is very well written with a wealth of detail about rural life, agriculture, domestic matters, the seasons and the beauties and hardships of the countryside. Patty is an engaging character – having to swallow her own doubts and disappointments in the pressing need to keep the family together. You will learn a lot about the life of John Clare from… show more.

The oakwoods of western Britain can look a little dull, but this rebranding of them, legitimately, as temperate rainforests, suddenly draws attention to them as special places that we should take responsibility for conserving.

Though I already knew many of the sites mentioned, I started to see them from a different perspective, to see their beauty afresh, and to think more about their vulnerability to changes in our climate, and to the impact of invasive species.

I was lucky enough to visit Isabella Tree’s farm, just after she and her husband had started their rewilding project. I have followed its progress over the next two decades as described here.

I am inspired by the hopeful conservation message it sends – as the trees and scrub have spread, so wildlife has thrived. Others have followed their example, and I see new ways of looking at what we want and can realistically achieve for conservation across the farmlands of Britain.

I loved this book as it follows the author’s quest to reconnect with nature and rediscover a sense of enchantment following the challenges of the COVID lockdowns.

Split into the four elements – earth, air, fire, and water – the author describes her explorations of each element in her life and how if leads her back to herself. I love the book as it enabled me to see nature through the author’s eyes, and with a perspective that is in some ways almost entirely different to my own, and in others, in harmony with my own thoughts and feelings. It was indeed an enchanting read.

I love this book because it is like a gentle meander through the woods with the author. You get a real sense of what details draw him in, what his fascinations are, and his discoveries through the turning seasons.

It is often said that in order to really get to know a place, it is good to walk the same route in nature every day, and that was the sense I got with this book. The author knows the landscape of the woods so well, it is like he is visiting an old friend.

When I was stuck indoors a lot during the COVID lockdown, it really helped me to remember why nature is so healing, and also inspired my own walks at this time which were spent in a small area of woodland in London.

I love this book as I used it as a road map of swimming adventures when I moved back home to the West Country after thirty years of living in the city.

I was faced with the challenge of not knowing where to swim, as we didn’t really go in the water when I was a child. The author visits a plethora of favourite swimming spots with a group of friends, and I felt like I was accompanying them on their trips.

I was able to use the book as a guide, to go and visit all the spots Lynne Roper mentions in her diaries, safe in the knowledge I was visiting places that people have swum in for years.

I first fell in love with this book as a teenager. I first discovered it when the BBC did a fabulous adaptation of the novel and I was compelled to go and read the novel.

The book follows the story of Prudence Sarn, a woman living with a facial disfigurement at the time of the Corn Laws and the Napoleonic Wars. Her brother decides to make his fortune growing corn on the family farm, and promises Pru a cure for her facial scars if she helps him, however, his obsession with money soon turns them towards disaster, and the local community turn on Pru, accusing her of being a witch.

Returning to academic study in my forties, I wrote my PhD novel and thesis on the life of Mary Webb, a nature mystic, and it just served to make me love the novel even more. Webb’s descriptions of rural Shropshire… show more.

Rackham led me into the woods in England as they were 500 to 1000 years ago—part of village life, being cut for firewood or cartwheels, and perhaps occasionally to supply beams for the local church, manor house, or even a cathedral.

I look at the flowers growing, the shapes of trees, and the patterns of the forest floor differently now—a legacy of human activity as well as nature. Their conservation takes on a different dimension.

The idea of the "wildwood," the prehistoric forests that might once have covered the landscape, has appealed to me since I was a child, but Peterken eloquently describes one version of what that idea might have meant in different places and times.

I can follow how a patch of trees might have grown and matured, to then be battered by gales, consumed by fire, or succumb to fungal or beetle attack. But even as the dead logs decay, new saplings shoot up around them. We have lost the wildwood in Britain, but perhaps we can allow some areas to start to recover at least part of their wildness.