Invention of Nature
Eccles Centre Writer in Residence Award 2013
Winner Royal Society Science Book Prize 2016
Winner Costa Biography Award 2015
Winner James Wright Award for Nature Writing 2016 (Kenyon Review & Nature Conservancy)
Winner LA Times Book Prize 2016
Winner Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award 2016 (SONWA)
Finalist Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non–Fiction 2016
Finalist Kirkus Prize 2015
Shortlisted IBW Book Prize
Finalist Cundill Prize in Historical Literature Recognition of Excellence 2016
Winner Acqui Storia Award 2017 (Italy)
Winner Dingle Prize British Society for the History of Science 2017
Winner Sarah Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievements 2017 (Garden Club of America).
Ness Award 2016, Royal Geographical Society
Shortlisted ‘Books Are My Bags Readers Award’, (The Booksellers Association) 2016
Shortlisted for Independent Bookshop Week Book Award 2016
Winner China Nature Book Award 2018
Winner of Bayerischer Buchpreis 2016 (Germany)
Winner Le Priz du doyen Jean de Feytaud 2018, Académie nationale des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Bordeaux, France
Winner of Lichtenberg-Medaille Academy of Sciences Göttingen 2019 (Germany).
The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt
Winner Wissensbuch des Jahres 2019 / Science Book 2019 “bild der Wissenschaft” (Germany)
Best Nature and Travel Books of 2019, Kirkus Reviews
Winner ITB Book Awards 2020, Category: Special Travel Books (Germany)
Chasing Venus
Shortlisted Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres 2012 / Science Book 2012 (Germany)
Brother Gardeners
Winner American Horticultural Society 2010 Book Award
Winner 2010 CBHL Annual Literature Award
Longlisted Samuel Johnson Prize 2008