Happy World Environment Day! To celebrate and show our support, we’ve put together a list of our favourite books about the natural world…

Ex-journalist Kay and her family are spending the summer in a rented farmhouse in Vermont. Kay is haunted by her traumatic past in Africa, and is struggling with her troubled marriage and the constraints of motherhood. Then her husband is called away unexpectedly on business and Kay finds herself alone with the children, obsessed by the idea that something terrible has happened to the owners of the house. The locals are reticent when she asks about their whereabouts; and she finds disturbing writing scrawled across one of the walls.

Julia Kelly met a charismatic and successful artist, Charlie Whisker, while she was working on her first novel. He was twenty years older than her. Their relationship was passionate and extraordinary; each of them inspired the other. Their friends were writers, artists and rock stars; they lived a glamorous life of exhibitions, parties and concerts. They became parents to a daughter they adored.

But Charlie suddenly changed, becoming hopelessly forgetful, angry and confused. Matchstick Man is an unbearably honest, unsentimental and heartbreaking description of a brilliant man's mental disintegration and its effects on his family. Charlie's disturbing behaviour is described in a series of terrible, understated revelations. 

An unforgettable telling of a story that will be familiar to many thousands of people in the UK and Ireland.

Laurie Canciani is the author of The Insomnia Museum.
I was only a few months through an MA in Creative Writing and I already wanted to quit. My partner was driving me to the train station at the time. I had the money in my hand ready to pay for the expensive journey that would get me all the way from South Wales to Bath and I’d read all the work necessary for the challenging seminars, but I decided it would be better, and easier, for me to quit. Luckily, my partner refused to take me back home and insisted I see the course through to the end, whatever the outcome. I was tired, overworked, and the minus sign next to my current account reflected the below-zero motivation I had to spend more money on something that I knew deep down wouldn’t work out. I went to the train station, got my ticket and forced myself to keep going. I didn’t know it then but quitting would’ve been the worst mistake I could’ve made. I went on to achieve a high grade, I won the coveted annual prize for the best work-in-progress of the year and I gained representation from a leading literary agency, which led to the publication of my debut novel The Insomnia Museum.