Books for International Day for Biological Diversity

Carlos Magdalena is a man on a mission: to save the world’s most endangered plants. In The Plant Messiah, Magdalena takes readers from the forests of Peru to deep within the Australian outback in search of the rare and the vulnerable. Back in the lab—at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, home of the largest botanical collection in the world—we watch as he develops groundbreaking, left-field techniques for rescuing species from extinction, encouraging them to propagate and thrive once again. Passionate and absorbing, The Plant Messiah is a tribute to the diversity of life on our planet, and to the importance of preserving it.

Carl Zimmer masterfully shows that while we all assume we know what life is, but from zygotes and vegetables to aliens and androids, scientists can’t actually agree on what it means to be alive. After centuries of confusion, that may be about to change.

In this playful yet informative manifesto, a leading plant neurobiologist presents the eight fundamental pillars on which the life of plants—and by extension, humans—rests.

The heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of an abandoned polar bear cub named Nora and the humans working tirelessly to save her and her species, whose uncertain future in the accelerating climate crisis is closely tied to our own.

One of the world’s most important scientists, Edward O. Wilson is also an abundantly talented writer who has twice won the Pulitzer Prize. In this, his most personal and timely book to date, he assesses the precarious state of our environment, examining the mass extinctions occurring in our time and the natural treasures we are about to lose forever.

Biologist and author of Sounds Wild and Broken David Haskell uses a one-square-meter patch of old-growth Tennessee forest as a window onto the entire natural world. Visiting it almost daily for one year to trace nature’s path through the seasons, he brings the forest and its inhabitants to vivid life.

In praise of imperfection: how life on our planet is a catalog of imperfections, errors, alternatives, and anomalies.

The epic story of the buffalo in America, from prehistoric times to today—a moving and beautifully illustrated work of natural history inspired by the PBS series "American Buffalo"

A lyrical exploration of the diverse sounds of our planet, the creative processes that produced these marvels, and the perils that sonic diversity now faces.

Following the trails of Hawai‘i’s snails to explore the simultaneously biological and cultural significance of extinction.

The story of the urgent fight to save the coral reefs, and why it matters to us all

A personal journey into our evolving relationships with animals, and a thought-provoking look at how those bonds are being challenged and reformed across disciplines

A leading medical ethnobotanist tells us her story in this uplifting and adventure-filled memoir that illuminates how the path forward for medical discovery may be found in nature’s oldest remedies. 

A wildly fun and scientifically sound exploration of what alien life must be like