A brilliantly colourful work of reportage … a haunting and truly important read' – The Telegraph

RECIPIENT OF A WHITING FOUNDATION AWARD

On 5 June 2022, award-winning journalist Dom Phillips was working on this book, alongside the indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, when they were both shot. They are believed to have been assassinated by one of the criminal networks whose ecological exploitation they were working to expose.

As the world becomes more aware of the significance of the Amazon, home to nearly 400 billion trees, working in this vast region has become ever more dangerous for activists and journalists. Fires, land grabs, and the invasion of reserves have all spiked over recent decades, pushing the world's biggest forest ever closer to a point of no return. The last few years have seen efforts to reduce deforestation, but the question remains; can we save this globally essential ecosystem before it is too late?

A group of expert writers took up Phillips' partially completed manuscript, committed to his mission of uncovering the truth about deforestation and searching for solutions. Blending in-depth reporting and encounters with indigenous activists, ecologists, farmers, and political figures, How to Save The Amazon is a dazzling account of how we can fight ecological destruction and stand in solidarity with the Earth's environmental defenders.

Scholarly, wise, funny, charming, terrifying and thrilling… I adored it all, every page. – JOANNA LUMLEY

Both a comfort and an inspiration – CHLOE DALTON, bestselling author of Raising Hare

This is a lovely book – wise, brave, thoughtful, painfully intimate – but with a remarkable spiritual and environmental vision. – RORY STEWART

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Reeling from the pain of devastating miscarriages and suffering from PTSD after military adventures in Afghanistan, Merlin and his wife Lizzie decide to leave the bustle of London and return to Merlin’s childhood home, a Cornish hill farm called Cabilla in the heart of Bodmin Moor.

There, they are met by unexpected challenges: a farm slipping ever further into debt, the discovery that the overgrazed and damaged woods running throughout the valley are in fact one of the UK’s last remaining fragments of Atlantic temperate rainforest, and the sudden and near catastrophic strickening by Covid of Merlin’s father, the explorer Robin.

As they fall more in love with the rainforest that Merlin had adventured in as a child, so begins a fight to save not only themselves and their farm, but also one of the world’s most endangered habitats.

Our Oaken Bones is an honest and intimate true story about renewal, the astonishing healing power of nature, and our duty to heal it in return.

Praise for Our Oaken Bones

An enormously moving and inspiring story about war, trauma, nature and rebirth, written with infectious passion and unsparing honesty. I loved it. – DOMINIC SANDBROOK

An extraordinarily courageous, urgent and powerful book. – ISABELLA TREE

Deeply compelling… emotional, informative, pleasurable. I believe that this is an important work with planet-sized dreams and ambitions. Perhaps the greatest philosophy or teachable lesson that came to me off the page is that dominion comes with responsibility. – RUSSELL CROWE

I love this book. – RICK STEIN

Powerfully enchanting, written with verve and imbued with hope. – GUY SHRUBSOLE

‘A defiant triumph of a book’ – Gaia Vince

‘An important book which we should all read’ – Andrea Wulf

An urgent work of reportage which takes the reader deep inside the Amazon rainforest, and shows that even if you kill a journalist, you cannot silence a story.

RECIPIENT OF A WHITING FOUNDATION AWARD

On 5 June 2022, award-winning journalist Dom Phillips was working on this book, alongside the indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, when they were both shot. They are believed to have been assassinated by one of the criminal networks whose ecological exploitation they were working to expose.

As the world becomes more aware of the significance of the Amazon, home to nearly 400 billion trees, working in this vast region has become ever more dangerous for activists and journalists. Fires, land grabs, and the invasion of reserves have all spiked over recent decades, pushing the world’s biggest forest ever closer to a point of no return. The last few years have seen efforts to reduce deforestation, but the question remains; can we save this globally essential ecosystem before it is too late?

Dom’s important and ultimately hopeful book argues the answer is yes. A group of expert writers took up his partially completed manuscript, committed to his mission of uncovering the truth about deforestation and searching for solutions. Blending in-depth reporting and encounters with indigenous activists, ecologists, farmers, and political figures, How to Save The Amazon is a dazzling account of how we can fight ecological destruction and stand in solidarity with the Earth’s environmental defenders.

Scholarly, wise, funny, charming, terrifying and thrilling… I adored it all, every page. – JOANNA LUMLEY

This is a lovely book – wise, brave, thoughtful, painfully intimate – but with a remarkable spiritual and environmental vision. – RORY STEWART

An extraordinarily courageous, urgent and powerful book. – ISABELLA TREE

Deeply compelling… emotional, informative, pleasurable. I believe that this is an important work with planet-sized dreams and ambitions. Perhaps the greatest philosophy or teachable lesson that came to me off the page is that dominion comes with responsibility. – RUSSELL CROWE

I love this book. – RICK STEIN

Powerfully enchanting, written with verve and imbued with hope. – GUY SHRUBSOLE

I lie on the rock to let my limbs dry after my immersion in the river. My bones warm. I have no towel but the moss is grateful for the additional moisture that I bring as the water runs off me and into its spongy web of roots and branches. I look up through the canopy and time freezes as the oak leaves drift gently backwards and forwards, dappling the light as it falls onto my body.

I am home.

Reeling from the pain of devastating miscarriages and suffering from PTSD after military adventures in Afghanistan, Merlin and his wife Lizzie decide to leave the bustle of London and return to Merlin’s childhood home, a Cornish hill farm called Cabilla in the heart of Bodmin Moor.

There, they are met by unexpected challenges: a farm slipping ever further into debt, the discovery that the overgrazed and damaged woods running throughout the valley are in fact one of the UK’s last remaining fragments of Atlantic temperate rainforest, and the sudden and near catastrophic strickening by Covid of Merlin’s father, the explorer Robin. As they fall more in love with the rainforest that Merlin had adventured in as a child, so begins a fight to save not only themselves and their farm, but also one of the world’s most endangered habitats.

Our Oaken Bones is an honest and intimate true story about renewal, the astonishing healing power of nature, and our duty to heal it in return.

For fans of The Salt Path and The Lost Rainforests of Britain.

Pathless Forest is the story of his journey to study and protect this remarkable plant – a biological enigma, still little understood, which invades vines as a leafless parasite and steals its food from them. We join him on a mind-bending adventure, as he faces a seemingly impenetrable barrier of weird, wonderful and sometimes fearsome flora; finds himself smacking off leeches, hanging off vines, wading through rivers; and following indigenous tribes into remote, untrodden rainforests in search of Rafflesia’s ghostly, foul-smelling blooms, more than a metre across.

We depend on plants for our very existence, but two in five of the world’s species are threatened with extinction – nobody knows how many species of Rafflesia might already have disappeared through deforestation. Pathless Forest is part thrilling adventure story and part an inspirational call to action to safeguard a fast-disappearing wilderness. To view plants in a different way, as vital for our own future as for that of the planet we share. And to see if Rafflesia itself can be saved.

Pathless Forest is the story of his journey to study and protect this remarkable plant – a biological enigma, still little understood, which invades vines as a leafless parasite and steals its food from them. We join him on a mind-bending adventure, as he faces a seemingly impenetrable barrier of weird, wonderful and sometimes fearsome flora; finds himself smacking off leeches, hanging off vines, wading through rivers; and following indigenous tribes into remote, untrodden rainforests in search of Rafflesia’s ghostly, foul-smelling blooms, more than a metre across.

We depend on plants for our very existence, but two in five of the world’s species are threatened with extinction – nobody knows how many species of Rafflesia might already have disappeared through deforestation. Pathless Forest is part thrilling adventure story and part an inspirational call to action to safeguard a fast-disappearing wilderness. To view plants in a different way, as vital for our own future as for that of the planet we share. And to see if Rafflesia itself can be saved.

The Sunday Times Science Book of the Year

As seen on Countryfile

‘If anyone was born to save Britain’s rainforests, it was Guy Shrubsole’ Sunday Times

Shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Society Literary Prize

Temperate rainforest may once have covered up to one-fifth of Britain, inspiring Celtic druids, Welsh wizards, Romantic poets, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s most loved creations. Though only fragments now remain, they are home to a dazzling variety of luminous life-forms.

In this awe-inspiring investigation, Guy Shrubsole travels through the Western Highlands and the Lake District, down to the rainforests of Wales, Devon, and Cornwall to map these spectacular lost worlds for the first time.

This is the extraordinary tale of one person’s quest to find Britain’s lost rainforests – and bring them back.

*Guy’s next book The Lie of the Land is out 12 September 2024*

Animal Explorers is a wonderful picture book series that will inspire all budding travellers and explorers to follow their dreams.

Lola the polar bear has a passion for plants. She’s determined to find the rarest ones on the planet.

So Lola makes a grand decision: she’s going to trek to the Amazon jungle!

It’s hard work for a polar bear, but nothing holds Lola back. And there’s a prize for her at the end of it, when she discovers the elusive Singing Orchid!

• Animal Explorers is a witty, entertaining picture-book series that will inspire children to follow their dreams.
• Sharon Rentta’s glowing illustrations are packed withfabulous characters and funny details to point out and share
• Mini biographies at the end of the book tell the amazing stories of three real-life explorers

Also in the Animal Explorers series:

• Stella the Astronaut, in which an adventurous squirrel dreams of being the first of her kind in space.

• Toby the Deep-Sea Diver, in which a young tiger longs to explore the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean.

Praise for Sharon Rentta’s books:

“Rentta’s illustrations are first class . . . destined to become a favourite.” Carousel

“full of colour and joy . . . great to read out loud” Books for Keeps