Author Guide · Nature Writing
Books Written by
A molecule is named after Diane Ackerman: dianeackerone, a sex pheromone of crocodilians. The American poet and naturalist, born in 1948, has wrestled an alligator in Florida, flown her own plane, worked a ranch in New Mexico and was a semi-finalist for NASA’s Journalist-in-Space Project before it was cancelled after the Challenger disaster. She did her PhD at Cornell with Carl Sagan on her committee and wrote for The New Yorker from 1988 to 1994. Her books range from the senses and the brain to endangered animals, a Warsaw zoo in the Second World War and her husband’s stroke. This guide covers her 12 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 12 key books · 1985–2014 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Diane Ackerman has published about two dozen books of nonfiction, poetry and children’s writing. The best known are A Natural History of the Senses (1990), The Zookeeper’s Wife (2007), One Hundred Names for Love (2011), a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and The Human Age (2014). Start with A Natural History of the Senses; read on for the order of her other books and which to pick by subject.
Where to Start with Diane Ackerman
If you want her defining book
→ A Natural History of the Senses (1990) — smell, touch, taste, hearing and vision, science mixed with folklore.
If you want a true story from the Second World War
→ The Zookeeper’s Wife (2007) — the Warsaw Zoo as a hiding place.
If you want a memoir
→ One Hundred Names for Love (2011) — a marriage after a stroke.
If you want field reporting on animals
→ The Moon by Whale Light (1991) — bats, crocodilians, penguins and whales.
12 Diane Ackerman Books, in Order
On Extended Wings
A memoir of learning to fly and of her adventures as a pilot. It was adapted for the stage by Norma Jean Giffin and performed at the William Redfield Theater in New York in 1987.
A Natural History of the Senses
A tour of the five senses and synaesthesia that mixes the science of how they work with folklore, history and her own observation, and with the ways different cultures have tried to stimulate them. It was a New York Times bestseller and became Mystery of the Senses (1995), a five-part PBS NOVA series that Ackerman presented.
The Moon by Whale Light
Four long pieces of field reporting: bats in Texas caves with the bat researcher Merlin Tuttle, alligators in Florida, penguins in Antarctica, and a mother whale and her calf in a bay in Patagonia, among experts including the whale scientist Roger Payne.
A Natural History of Love
The companion to A Natural History of the Senses: love across history and cultures, and what biology says about attraction and attachment.
The Rarest of the Rare
Journeys to endangered animals and places: monk seals on French Frigate Shoals in Hawaii, short-tailed albatrosses on Torishima, a volcanic island south of Tokyo, and golden lion tamarins in Brazil’s Atlantic forest, plus the Amazon, the Florida scrublands and the migration of the monarch butterfly.
A Slender Thread
An account of her years as a volunteer counsellor on a suicide-prevention and crisis telephone line, and of what the calls taught her about despair and survival.
Deep Play
A book about play in its most absorbing form, the state in which people lose themselves in an activity, drawing on art, sport, religion and her own experiences.
An Alchemy of Mind
Her book about the brain: memory, emotion, language and the sense of self, explained through neuroscience and written with the same mix of fact and image as her books on the senses.
The Zookeeper’s Wife
Jan and Antonina Żabiński ran the Warsaw Zoo when Germany invaded Poland. During the occupation they sheltered more than 300 people, most of them Jews, in their villa, in cellars and in empty animal cages; Yad Vashem later honoured them. Ackerman drew on Antonina’s diaries. The book was a New York Times bestseller, won the Orion Book Award, and was filmed in 2017 with Jessica Chastain as Antonina.
Dawn Light
Short pieces about daybreak and the natural world waking up, from cranes to the birds and gardens of the early morning, mixed with what dawn has meant to people.
One Hundred Names for Love
After a stroke left her husband, the novelist Paul West, with aphasia, able at first to say only the syllable “mem”, Ackerman worked with him to rebuild his language. The book follows his recovery alongside the brain science behind it. It was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
The Human Age
A tour of the Anthropocene, the era in which humans shape the planet: geologists reading the human fossil record, climate change, invasive species, rooftop farms, 3-D printed organs, robots and an orangutan project at the Toronto Zoo. It was a New York Times bestseller and won the PEN New England Henry David Thoreau Prize and a National Outdoor Book Award.
In What Order to Read Diane Ackerman
None of Ackerman’s books continue one another, so you can read by subject. The two natural histories, of the senses (1990) and of love (1994), belong together, and An Alchemy of Mind (2004) carries the same approach to the brain. The animal books, The Moon by Whale Light and The Rarest of the Rare, are her field reporting.
One Hundred Names for Love reads best after An Alchemy of Mind, since it turns her reading on the brain into her own household. The Zookeeper’s Wife stands apart as narrative history and needs nothing before it.
A reading path
1. A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
2. The Moon by Whale Light (1991)
3. The Zookeeper’s Wife (2007)
4. One Hundred Names for Love (2011)
5. The Human Age (2014)
Everything Else Diane Ackerman Published
Beyond the 12 key books: 12 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Poetry
7
7 books · 1976–2002
- 1976The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoralher first book, poems about astronomy
- 1978Wife of Lightpoems
- 1983Lady Faustuspoems
- 1988Reverse Thunderadapted as a musical in 1992
- 1991Jaguar of Sweet Laughternew and selected poems
- 1998I Praise My Destroyerpoems
- 2002Origami Bridgespoems
Other prose
2
2 books · 1980–2001
- 1980Twilight of the Tenderfoota memoir of working as a cowhand on a ranch in New Mexico
- 2001Cultivating Delighta natural history of her garden
Children’s books
3
3 books · 1995–2003
- 1995Monk Seal HideawayHawaiian monk seals
- 1997Bats: Shadows in the Nightbats
- 2003Animal Sensepoems, illustrated by Peter Sís
The years · 1948–2022
Quick facts about Diane Ackerman
- Known for
- Diane Ackerman is known for nature writing that joins science and poetry, above all A Natural History of the Senses, and for The Zookeeper’s Wife, the story of a Warsaw zoo that hid Jews during the Second World War.
- 1948
- Born in Waukegan, Illinois
- 1976
- First book, The Planets
- 2022
- Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication
- Born
- 7 October 1948, Waukegan, Illinois, as Diane Fink
- Education
- BA, Pennsylvania State University (1970); MFA, MA and PhD, Cornell University
- Worked
- Staff writer at The New Yorker, 1988–1994; taught at Cornell, Columbia and other universities
- Married
- The novelist Paul West (1930–2015)
- Honours
- Guggenheim Fellowship (2003), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016), Stephen Hawking Medal (2022)
- Named after her
- Dianeackerone, a crocodilian sex pheromone
- Lives
- Ithaca, New York
The red mark is 1990: A Natural History of the Senses, the bestseller that became a PBS NOVA series.
How Diane Ackerman Writes: A Poet in the Field
Ackerman started as a poet, and her first book, The Planets (1976), was poems about astronomy. She has kept writing poetry alongside the prose, and her nonfiction is built the same way: dense with images and metaphor, but tied to scientific facts she has checked with researchers.
Much of her work is first-hand. For The Moon by Whale Light and The Rarest of the Rare she travelled to Texas caves, Antarctica, Patagonia and remote Pacific islands, and was injured along the way, including broken ribs and a seal attack. Her memoirs use the same method on her own life: learning to fly, taking calls on a crisis line, her husband’s stroke.
The books often pair a subject with its science and its cultural history: the senses with folklore, love with chemistry, a stroke with neurology. The Zookeeper’s Wife is the exception in form, a narrative history built on Antonina Żabińska’s diaries, but it keeps her eye for the animals.
Watch
Diane Ackerman in Conversation with Marcia Alvar
In this 1997 University of Washington programme, Diane Ackerman talks with host Marcia Alvar about her writing and her work as a counselor on a suicide crisis line, the subject of A Slender Thread. From the official UW Video channel.
Frequently asked questions about Diane Ackerman’s books
How many books has Diane Ackerman written?
About two dozen. Twelve are the key prose books on this page, from On Extended Wings (1985) to The Human Age (2014); the rest are seven poetry collections, two other prose books and three children’s books.
What are Diane Ackerman’s books in order?
On Extended Wings (1985), A Natural History of the Senses (1990), The Moon by Whale Light (1991), A Natural History of Love (1994), The Rarest of the Rare (1995), A Slender Thread (1997), Deep Play (1999), An Alchemy of Mind (2004), The Zookeeper’s Wife (2007), Dawn Light (2009), One Hundred Names for Love (2011) and The Human Age (2014).
Where should I start with Diane Ackerman?
A Natural History of the Senses (1990), the book that made her name and shows her mix of science, history and poetry. If you prefer a story, start with The Zookeeper’s Wife.
What is Diane Ackerman’s most famous book?
The Zookeeper’s Wife (2007) reached the widest audience, helped by the 2017 film. Among readers of nature writing, A Natural History of the Senses (1990) is the book she is best known for.
Is The Zookeeper’s Wife a true story?
Yes. It tells how Jan and Antonina Żabiński, who ran the Warsaw Zoo, sheltered more than 300 people, most of them Jews, during the German occupation. Ackerman based the book on Antonina’s diaries and other sources.
Was The Zookeeper’s Wife made into a film?
Yes. The film The Zookeeper’s Wife, with Jessica Chastain as Antonina Żabińska, was released in the United States on 31 March 2017.
Did Diane Ackerman win a Pulitzer Prize?
No, but One Hundred Names for Love was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2012, and for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Human Age won the PEN New England Henry David Thoreau Prize, and The Zookeeper’s Wife won the Orion Book Award.
Who was Diane Ackerman’s husband?
The British-born novelist Paul West (1930–2015). His stroke and the aphasia that followed are the subject of her memoir One Hundred Names for Love (2011).
Is Diane Ackerman still alive?
Yes. She was born on 7 October 1948 in Waukegan, Illinois, and lives in Ithaca, New York. In 2022 she received the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication.
What is A Natural History of the Senses about?
Smell, touch, taste, hearing, vision and synaesthesia, explained through biology, history, folklore and her own experience. It became the 1995 PBS NOVA series Mystery of the Senses, which she presented.
Footnotes
- Diane Ackerman — Wikipedia
- Diane Ackerman — EBSCO Research Starters
- Diane Ackerman — Lewis Thomas Prize, The Rockefeller University
- Heroine who turned a zoo into a refuge from the Nazis — The Jewish Chronicle
- The Rarest of the Rare — Publishers Weekly
- The Human Age — Kirkus Reviews, 2014
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible.”
— Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
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