How to Love the World

by Ilka Tampke

Perhaps motherhood is always a promise that cannot be kept.

Rain or shine, Nellika Werner goes for long walks every day in the bush near her home. The cool silence of the forest helps soothe what is repeatedly torn apart by family life.

One morning, she decides to take a path she’s never walked before. Deep in this remote part of the forest, Nellika is struck by a falling manna gum branch, which pins her to the ground. Shockingly injured and unable to move, with no water or phone, her only hope is that someone will find her.

*

When her children are born, Nellika vows she will be the perfect mother. Motherhood is something sacred, it will remake everything that is broken in her. But as her children grow, the myth begins to crack, and she realises some breaks can never be healed.

*

As the window of hope for rescue gradually closes, and darkness falls on what might be her last day, Nellika makes a reckoning of herself and the place where she lies. Is this fallen branch an accident or a punishment? As death draws close, the forest asks why should you live? And in the dark heart of her memories, she discovers that there is an answer.

Both a meditation on nature and healing, and a map of how one generation’s struggle imprints on the next, How to Love the World is brilliant, immersive and ultimately hopeful.

Genres: Literary Fiction

313 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 26, 2026

About the author

Ilka Tampke teaches fiction at RMIT University. Her first novel, Skin, was published in eight countries and was nominated for the Voss Literary Prize and the Aurealis Awards in 2016. Ilka lives on five acres in the Macedon Ranges of Victoria.

Reviews

[Suz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oscillating wildly, I was floundering and disinterested at times, yet the deeply honest portrayal into motherhood was disturbing and fascinatingly refreshing in equal measure. The swings and roundabouts made for the perfect last turn.

The path of motherhood chosen by Nellika was fraught with failure as she had set her sights on near perfection. What we witness is a lifetime of introspection and reckoning that meanders yet remains highly astute. I know deep inside my soul the shiny outwardly motherhood trope of ‘it’s all beautifully shiny’ isn’t real, I’ve never run this way, so I LOVED the realness. It resonated deeply. Some quotes:

•Each time her body ignites with life, with purpose.
Each time, because she is in no position to be a mother, she has the baby taken out.
After the third time, alone and bleeding on her bedroom floor in outer London, she asks herself why she, who holds motherhood so sacred, has allowed her womb to become a theatre of its destruction.•

•She hoped her children would love the world a little more now that some part of it would be made of her.•

What culminates is a five star read ~ surprising and eye raising even for myself. Insightful and scary as Nellika spills her heart story. From 2 to 5 stars landing on 5 is a near impossibility for me. I loved it, the ending perfection. Thank you for choosing this path, Ilka 💗🍃

Thank you Simon & Shuster, where have I been not having read this author? Better late than never.

❓What book made you wildly change direction in your rating

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
This was somewhat unsettling. A forty-seven-year-old mother goes for a solo hike in the forest. A huge branch falls on her, now she's pinned down and hurt badly. Will she be found or will she die there?

The novel swings between the present and the past, with the narrator remembering the fights with her pre-teen kids and her absolutely losing her cool. The present is urgent and painful. The past is gone but it also holds pain due to parenting fails, abandonment etc.

I liked the writing style and the premise, including the interrogation of female rage, even when it's only directed towards those we love.

[Madeline Mcfarlane · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was a breathtakingly gorgeous novel that, at its core, centres the idea of creation. either as an artist, a mother, as human or nature — what do you you create? what part do you have in the birthing of something, in the life and the death of it?

with a stunning literary style, ilka tampke skilfully weaves timelines together so seamlessly that you feel perpetually in suspense, but also so grounded and awed by both the experiences of nellika’s life and the natural world around her.

while most of my draw to the novel was for its setting within nature, i found myself incredibly taken with the way it explores the abject experiences of womanhood and motherhood. this novel is a wonderful work of ecofeminism and its examination of motherhood and its connection to the the earth was so insightful that it had me questioning my own convictions.

i found myself unable to tear myself away from this novel. it’s no doubt that the world has been graced with another beautiful and meaningful piece of work.

[Renee | Cosa Book Club · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to Love the World by Ilka Tempke | Book review | 5 stars! | This is storytelling. I have never been so moved by a novel.

If you take one book recommendation from me, please let it be this book. I'm writing this review a few days after finishing How to Love the World and I can safely say, this is my favourite book of 2026, possibly my favourite book of all time. It is poetic, it is meditative, it is a self-help book cleverly embedded in a beautiful, moving fiction story. I just about underlined every line of this book as sentence after sentence quotes were taking me aback.

Nellika, our main character, grapples with the challenges of motherhood, the discovery of what may be generational trauma, and seeking her home land - is it the land of our ancestors or the land on which we are born? Both? Neither? We read through past and present timelines, seeing Nellika's experience as a daughter and as a mother, as a student and as a teacher, as a single woman and as a wife. There are parts of her life that I have lived through, and so much that is still yet to come. An immediate learning I had from this novel is that we cannot act like we have time. Work through your regrets, say your apologies, tell those around you that you love them, go and hug a tree - connect with nature. You never know when the land will decide that it is your time.

This book is a call to not only discover our own histories, but to also discover the land around us. Appreciate its history, its beauty, its magnificence, its healing, its power.

Quotes I love:
"She clung to every detail, willing the tree to keep her awake. It comforted her: the gentleness of its colours, the off-kilter way it had grown. Something in its distorted beauty flooded her with hope."

"Free me, she begged to whomever had power to do so. Free me, and I will honour the miracle of this body for as long as I am alive."

"To all external observance, their family seems robust, even idyllic. They live in the country, grow vegetables, keep chickens, play sport, take holidays, go camping. But beneath this surface there beats a steady drum of crisis. A monster howls. That monster is her."

"Something happens to the human voice when someone shouts in anger. It flows too fast, too violently, like a flooding river breaching its banks. When you hear it, your body registers danger. That person has ruptured the boundaries of themselves. They are not safe ground."

"Things can be sad and beautiful."

I am always slightly biased when it comes to a novel that is set in forest/bush inspired by south-eastern, Australia. I enjoy reading descriptions of swallowing mountains, grandfather eucalyptus trees, native Australian wildlife. The setting is a plot device in this novel, and it is a setting that I have grown up in, that I have studied at university, that I love and that I miss every day from my inner city rental. I felt a link to this story through Nellika's exploration of her connection to land, her need to 'touch grass', as the internet would say, when she is overwhelmed, when the world is coming crashing down upon her. There is nothing quite like the centring nature of Australian nature. It is its superpower. It is healing.

I ended this book with such a deep appreciation for, and desire to be like Nellika, helping others to learn 'how to love the world' around them. If you are living in Australia, we are so lucky to have the parks, the forests, the wildlife that are at our fingertips. You can drive for less than an hour from Melbourne CBD and get lost in so many forests. Find your connection to land. Nurture it. Protect it.

My rating is 5 manna gums out of 5. Would I recommend this book? Yes, and yes again. I will be rereading this if I become a mother. I will be rereading this visiting my family in South Gippsland. I will be rereading this on a rainy day. Everyone needs to read this. Have your journal ready as you might have some thoughts to work through after this one.

Pick up this book if you are interested in: Literary fiction, motherhood, grief, life purpose, beauty in nature, generational trauma, mental health

How to Love the World was published in May 2026 by Summit Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. I was provided a physical ARC and eARC of this book. This review is my own, honest review as they will always be.

[Monique · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book blew me away. It’s incredibly written. The character development is top-notch. The story itself is riveting. But the complexity and beauty by which complex themes are explored is impressive.

Nellika, a forest enthusiast, finds herself trapped under a tree bow and grappling with the necessity of survival and the way she’s lived her life. She’s not quite the Mum she wants to be but can’t seem to change. In this story, we move between phases of her life as she collects it all together. We flow between the micro and macro view and explore what makes a person. It’s truly moving.

[Tom Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a powerfully moving novel, one that made me cry several times. Ilka Tampke is an author brimming with emotion, for the natural world and the familial. The questioning of a mother in the face of great peril, of her place in the world as a parent, and also as a daughter, is so beautifully written. Added to this is a page-turning plot that begs the reader to not put this down. I’ll long be thinking of certain parts of this book, a gift.

[Marnie Nitschke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hadn’t read anything for a good few months, and this book has broken the drought in the most beautiful and heartwarming way. I devoured it! I cried a lot. It’s both challenging and a pleasure to read. How To Love The World is one of those rare stories that sticks with you and inspires you, well after it’s finished. My favourite book from Ilka 💚.

[Anne Freeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unforgettable, achingly beautiful and heart-breaking reflection on motherhood, womanhood and what it means to be a small part of a vast ecosystem. Unlike anything else I've read, this tender narrative will stay with me forever.

[Emily Rayers · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have a mother or you are a mother or you like trees then you should read this. I have no words to articulate how staggeringly emotive this novel was. So heavy that I was crushed over and over again, and even in the gentler aftermath I will be carrying the impact with me maybe forever. What a stunning depiction of big themes like intergenerational trauma, belonging, motherhood and the Motherhood of nature. It feels wrong to describe it as a joy to read but truly it was 300 pages of bittersweet poetry, an ode to the manna gum and every other atom of our world.

[Rhi Zarzhavsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Nothing new can be birthed without violence. Something must always be destroyed.”

Everyone with a mother should read this book.
Especially if she’s ever yelled at you, or you her.
So, everyone, basically.

[Eliza · Rating 4 out of 5]

The type of book that would be studied in an English class, I feel. I found the structure of the book very interesting in the way that the chapters alternated between various points in the main character’s life and only returned to the present sparingly.
It did confuse me that the daughter had a name, but not the son. I had thought there would be reason for that, perhaps that the son had died, but that didn’t appear to be the case.

[Don Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe this novel is more for women than men. I read it following a good review. The premise is okay - a middle-aged woman is getting some precious time alone after dropping her fractious teenage kids at school. She is walking in an unnamed forest (somewhere in NSW or Victoria?), one of her favourite retreats, when a large tree limb breaks off and lands on her back. She is pinned to the ground, unable to move with only her dog with her. It is a little used track, so there will be few walkers to find her. She then reminisces about her life, present and past.
Sorry, but her past lives did not really enthrall me, despite them being what we all (mostly) go through, with regrets and triumphs etc. And, I am a little tired of the use of “Damn, forgot my phone ( or find myself in a place without phone coverage) and my water bottle.”

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for this ARC.

The book follows Nellika across various sporadic timelines and her perspective on motherhood as both a mother and a daughter.

It heavily explores the themes of belonging and nature.

Whilst I enjoyed the ideas presented and it definitely allows you to understand her (and maybe your relationship with your own mother), there is something about the execution that didn’t exactly have me hooked.

[Amy Plant]

Not leaving a review until after bookclub

[Bethany D · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 - BC