Books by Diane Cook

'THE ENVIRONMENTAL NOVEL OF OUR TIMES.' Lemn Sissay, Booker Prize judge From an acclaimed Guardian First Book Award finalist comes a debut novel 'brutal and beautiful in equal measure' (Emily St. John Mandel) Longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize 2020 Bea's five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away. The smog and pollution of the overdeveloped, overpopulated metropolis they call home is ravaging her lungs. Bea knows she cannot stay in the City, but there is only one alternative: The Wilderness State. Mankind has never been allowed to venture into this vast expanse of untamed land. Until now. Bea and Agnes join eighteen other volunteers who agree to take part in a radical experiment. They must slowly learn how to live in the unpredictable, often dangerous Wilderness, leaving no trace on their surroundings in their quest to survive. But as Agnes embraces this new existence, Bea realises that saving her daughter's life might mean losing her in ways she hadn't foreseen. At once a blazing lament of our contempt for nature and a deeply humane portrayal of motherhood, The New Wilderness is an extraordinary, urgent novel from a celebrated new literary voice.

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD 2015* SHORTLISTED FOR THE LA TIMES BOOKS PRIZE 2015 A SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE NOTABLE BOOK OF 2014 A BOSTON GLOBE BEST FICTION OF 2014 ROXANE GAY'S TOP TEN BOOKS OF 2014 AN AMAZON BEST SHORT STORY COLLECTION OF 2014 AN iBOOK BEST OF 2014 Perfectly pitched and gorgeously penned, this astonishingly bold collection of stories explores the boundary between the wild and the civilized. Pitting human beings against the extremes of nature, Diane Cook surgically peels back the layers of civilization to lay bare our vulnerabilities and the ease with which our darker, primal urges emerge. These exhilarating and terrifying tales are set in worlds that are distorted versions of our own, where an alpha male is pursued through city streets by murderous rivals, a marooned woman defends her house against the rising flood and hordes of desperate refugees, and a pack of not-needed boys take refuge in a murky forest and compete against one another for food. Wry, transgressive and utterly unique, Cook's wildly inventive debut collection illuminates, with surreal humour and heartbreak, humankind's struggle not only to thrive, but survive.

More than fifty historic trees with remarkable stories from around the world