Poetry

• The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral. New York: William Morrow and Co. (1976)
• Wife of Light. New York: William Morrow and Co. (1978)
• Lady Faustus. New York: William Morrow and Co., (1983)
• Reverse Thunder: A Dramatic Poem. New York: Lumen Books (1988)
• Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems. New York: Random House (1991)
• I Praise My Destroyer. New York: Vintage Books (1998)
• Origami Bridges: Poems of Psychoanalysis and Fire. New York: Harper Collins Publishers (2002)

Non-fiction

• Twilight of the Tenderfoot (1980)
• On Extended Wings (1985)
• A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
• The Moon by Whale Light, and Other Adventures Among Bats and Crocodilains, Penguins and Whales (1991)
• A Natural History of Love (1994)
• The Rarest of the Rare (1995)
• A Slender Thread (1997)
• Deep Play (1999)
• Cultivating Delight (2002)
• An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain (2004)
• The Zookeeper´s Wife: A War Story (2007)
• Dawn Light: Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways to Start the Day (2009)
• One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing (2011)
• The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us (2014)

Children's books

• Monk Seal Hideaway (1995)
• Bats: Shadows in the Night (1997)
• Animal Sense (poetry), illustrated by Peter Sis. New York: Alfred A. Knopf(2003)