He is noted for his books Sea Room (about the Shiant Isles, a group of uninhabited islands in the Hebrides); God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible; The Mighty Dead (US title:Why Homer Matters) exploring the epic Greek poems; The Seabird's Cry about the disaster afflicting the world's seabirds; The Making of Poetry on the Romantic Revolution in England in the 1790s; and Life Between the Tides, a boundary-crossing account of the tides in human and animal life.
He has made several television series (with Keo Films) and radio series (with Tim Dee, the writer and radio producer) on a variety of subjects including the King James Bible, 17th-century literacy, Crete, Homer, the idea of Arcadia, the untold story of Britain's 20th-century whalers and the future of Atlantic seabirds.
Between 2005 and 2009, in partnership with the National Trust, Nicolson led a project which transformed the 260 acres (110 ha) surrounding the house and garden at Sissinghurst into a productive mixed farm, growing meat, fruit, cereals and vegetables for the National Trust restaurant.
[2] And between 2012 and 2017, together with the RSPB, the EU and SNH, Nicolson and his son Tom were partners in a project to eradicate invasive predators from the Shiant Isles, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.
[4] Nicolson met his first wife, the writer Olivia Fane, when he was a student at Cambridge University.