Recs if you like The Reign of Wolf 21: The Saga of Yellowstone’s Legendary Druid Pack...

A list of books that fit the prompts for the 2026 Polymath Training Challenge. (Egypt / Sleep, dreams / Astronomy and space exploration / Gastronomy and foods / Interior design, furniture / Chemistry / Mines and mining / Exploration and explorers / Art and nature /Agriculture /Economics) plus the "choose 1" prompts (Microbiome / Chocolate and coffee / Cultural history / Boardgames and role-playing games / Linguistics / Ethology / History of science / Cosmetics / Empathy). Open to suggestions!

Polymath Training Challenge is a non-fiction reading challenge that has been running on a Hungarian book site for the past 11 years. Each year it has 12 categories that participants have to pick their own nonfiction reads for (incl. memoirs and biographies). I have discovered several amazing nonfiction books through this challenge, so I decided to make a list of the best, and most mind-blowing, of them so far.

Were you a wolf kid growing up? Did you play WolfQuest and fall in love with these animals and their ecosystem? Here’s the real story of how wolves were returned to YNP in 1995, and how they have survived since.

Some of these books focus on the people who made the reintroduction successful, and some focus on the stories of the wolves themselves. Some even deal with how we view wolves as a culture and society. Enjoy!

books (fiction & nonfiction) where the natural world is its own character