For World Book Day, we’ve picked three compelling novels on the theme of landscape.
6 March 2025 is World Book Day, a yearly, nation-wide initiative to get people reading. Reading has countless benefits, from improved cognitive function to reductions in stress. There are thousands of titles that could relate to land and nature. We’ve picked three that you might want to find in your local library or order from an independent bookshop.
The Great Level by Stella Tillyard
In the mid-seventeenth century, a Dutch engineer arrives in East Anglia to “reclaim” the fenlands, a vast area of watery marshland rich in wildlife. Jan Brunt is excited to bring order to the landscape, shaping it into regular fields sown with corn – his vision of beauty. However, his views are slowly changed when he meets Fenlander Eliza. The rights of Fenlanders like Eliza were disregarded by the reclamation enterprise, despite their resistance efforts. The Great Level is an account of a little-known history and the importance of respecting those who live in the location of a landscape initiative.
The High House by Jessie Greengrass
The High House gets its name from the refuge created by a climate scientist for her two children and their caretakers during the acceleration of the climate crisis. It is on high ground to try and escape the increasingly erratic weather patterns and rising sea levels. The occupants live in isolation, tending the orchard, storing seed, and withstanding ordinary human tensions in an extraordinary world. The novel is a stark reminder of the potential for climate change to transform our landscapes, as well as how – or whether – we can live in them. It also warns of the potential for the climate crisis to take us by surprise, especially if we continue to live as we have always done.
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
In this dark novel, a teenager, her mother and history-enthusiast father accompany a professor and his students to rural Northumberland. Their goal is to live as their Iron Age ancestors did, to “walk the land as they walked it two thousand years ago”. It is the height of summer, and the baking moors and airless woods soon become oppressive and disorientating. Relationships start to falter, and the most visceral practices of ancient people in their landscapes merge alarmingly into the present.
We hope this serves as a reminder of not just the ecological and climate-related benefits our landscapes bring, but their artistic value too, as we can see how so many draw literary inspiration from them.
