{"id":619239,"date":"2026-09-17T20:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T20:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/619239\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T20:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T20:04:12","slug":"robert-macfarlane-and-jackie-morris-guide-to-49-threatened-british-birds-wins-wainwright-book-of-the-year-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/619239\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris\u2019 guide to 49 threatened British birds wins Wainwright book of the year | Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Book of Birds<\/a> by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, an illustrated guide to Britain\u2019s threatened bird species, has been named as the Wainwright prize book of the year.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the prize\u2019s children\u2019s book of the year award went to Otherlands: An Illustrated Journey Through Earth\u2019s Lost Worlds<\/a> by Thomas Halliday, illustrated by Gavin Scott.<\/p>\n

The Book of Birds features 49 species of declining or endangered birds, with text by Macfarlane alongside artwork by Morris. It\u2019s a \u201ctwist on the classic field guides that inspired both authors, evoking the spirit and poetry of birds from avocet to yellowhammer\u201d, wrote Patrick Barkham in a Guardian interview<\/a> with the author-illustrator pair in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are three billion fewer birds in North America than 50 years ago; 600 million fewer in Europe,\u201d said Macfarlane at the time. \u201cOur skies are thinner, our springs quieter. This is a savage loss. We wanted, in paint and word, to pull birds back into focus and splendour \u2013 and warn against their vanishing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macfarlane and Morris previously collaborated on the bestselling title The Lost Words<\/a>, which was a response to a group of nature-related words, including acorn and wren, being removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary because children were using them infrequently. The book was shortlisted for the 2018 prize. The following year, Macfarlane won the prize with his book Underland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Along with its two overall winners, the Wainwright prize, which celebrates the best nature and conservation writing published in the UK, announced four further category winners: Ancient: Reviving the Woods That Made Britain<\/a> by Luke Barley (nature writing), The Savage Landscape<\/a> by Cal Flyn (conservation writing), The Danger of Small Things<\/a> by Caryl Lewis (children\u2019s fiction) and The Great Bear<\/a> by Annie Booker (picture books). Macfarlane and Morris had topped the illustrative books category, while Halliday and Scott won in the children\u2019s nonfiction category, before both books went on to be named overall winners.<\/p>\n

Each of the category winners receive \u00a3500 each, while the overall winners receive an additional \u00a32,500 each.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs environmental and social challenges grow ever more urgent, it\u2019s inspiring to see writers using their voices to deepen our connection with the natural world,\u201d said prize director Alastair Giles.<\/p>\n

The prize was founded in 2013 by Frances Lincoln and the Alfred Wainwright estate. Previous winners include James Rebanks, Merlin Sheldrake and Chloe Dalton, who took home last year\u2019s book of the year award<\/a> for Raising Hare, about rescuing a leveret during the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Book of Birds by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, an illustrated guide to Britain\u2019s threatened bird species,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-619239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}