The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane
The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
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The Old Ways
A Journey on Foot

Author: Robert Macfarlane

Narrator: Robin Sachs

Unabridged: 8 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/11/2012

Synopsis

From the acclaimed author ofThe Wild Placescomes an engrossing exploration of walking and thinking. In this exquisitely written book, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of pilgrimage and ritual. Told in Macfarlanes distinctive voice,The Old Waysfolds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology, and literature. His walks take him from the chalk downs of England to the bird islands of the Scottish northwest, from Palestine to the sacred landscapes of Spain and the Himalayas. Along the way he crosses paths with walkers of many kindswanderers, pilgrims, guides, and artists. Above all this is a book about walking as a journey inward and the subtle ways we are shaped by the landscapes through which we move.Macfarlane discovers that paths offer not just a means of traversing space but of feeling, knowing, and thinking.

About Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane is the author of bestselling, prizewinning books about nature, place, and people, including Mountains of the Mind, The Old Ways, Landmarks, and (with Jackie Morris) The Lost Words. In 2017 he was awarded the E. M. Forster Prize for Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Cambridge, England, where he is a fellow of Cambridge University.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kelly on December 28, 2013

"'We picked the path up at the edge of the cloud cover that day,' she said, 'and then we stepped into the mist under the mountain and the rest of the world was lost.'" Robert MacFarlane is a Cambridge professor of modern English literature. However, he happens to be much better known for his seconda......more

Goodreads review by Zanna on March 17, 2018

What I like about this is that it helps me to see the land and the biosphere, feel the land and its life in my body, to relate myself to the land, even in memory, and in the future. As Naomi Klein puts it in This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, love will save this place. And for many......more

Goodreads review by Richard on May 01, 2013

To begin with I found this a disappointing read. I expected to be impressed and enthralled - I love mountains, I love walking, and I like erudite writing, but I found this a little difficult to get into. The writing flows, but the contents don't always work. I think this is because Macfarlane quotes......more

Goodreads review by Cherisa on May 27, 2024

This book took me so long to read because Macfarlane took me to places I knew nothing about, so I “had to” do a lot of side-reading, a leading indicator on how much I am going to love a book. His sensibilities about place and our interaction with it, being in and passing through a place, putting our......more

Goodreads review by Malia on January 04, 2020

This was my first book by Macfarlane, and my first book of this decade, and a good start on both fronts. I really enjoyed his style of writing, which felt immersive, though the pace of the book was sedate. I love walking myself, it is, for me, one of the most meditative things I can think to do, and......more

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