Spring is here, and just because we can’t leave our houses doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the beauty around us. Here are some books to get you back to nature from home.

A visually stunning celebration of bird migration—one of the great marvels of the natural world.

The vast transcontinental journeys made every year by millions of feathered migrants were not known to naturalists before the late nineteenth century. Even today much of the science remains poorly understood. In Flights of Passage, celebrated nature writer Mike Unwin and award-winning photographer David Tipling highlight sixty-seven different species of birds from around the world and explore how each has adapted to its migratory cycle.

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The first collection of Thoreau’s writings on the flowering plants of Concord, with more than 200 drawings by renowned artist Barry Moser.

This inviting selection of Thoreau’s best flower writings is arranged by day of the year and accompanied by Thoreau’s philosophical speculations and his observations of the weather and of other plants and animals. They illuminate the author’s spirituality, his belief in nature’s correspondence with the human soul, and his sense that anticipation—of spring, of flowers yet to bloom—renews our connection with the earth and with immortality. Thoreau’s Wildflowers also presents “Thoreau as Botanist,” an essay by Ray Angelo, the leading authority on the flowering plants of Concord.

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A lyrical tribute to the diversity of trees, their physical beauty, their special characteristics and uses, and their ever-evolving meanings.

In this beautifully illustrated volume Fiona Stafford offers intimate, detailed explorations of seventeen common trees, from ash and apple to pine, oak, cypress, and willow. The author also pays homage to the fabled Ankerwyke Yew, under which Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn, and the spectacular cherry trees of Washington, D.C. Stafford discusses practical uses of wood past and present, tree diseases and environmental threats, and trees’ potential contributions toward slowing global climate change. The Long, Long Life of Trees celebrates trees and their long, long lives as our inspiring and beloved natural companions.

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A beautifully illustrated exploration of the quest for order within the garden, and within the natural world.

From climate studies to the butterfly’s life cycle, A Natural History of English Gardening examines the scientific quest for order in nature as an offshoot of ordering the garden. Mark Laird follows a broad series of events—from the Little Ice Age winter of 1683 to the drought summer of the volcanic 1783—to probe the nature of gardening and husbandry, the role of amateurs in scientific disciplines, and the contribution of women as gardener-naturalists.

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A rich vein of the artist’s mature work, depicting the foundations of landscape and place.

From the mid-1860s until shortly before his death, Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) created 27 canvases that take rock formations as their principal subjects. This is the first publication to focus exclusively on these extraordinary works. Cézanne illustrates all of Cézanne’s mature paintings of rock formations, including scenes of the terrain of the forest of Fontainebleau, the Mediterranean coastal village of L’Estaque, and the area around Aix-en-Provence, alongside examples of his watercolors of these subjects.

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