Background
Robert Macfarlane was born on April 23, 1815, in Rutherglen, near Glasgow, Scotland.
( In Silt, bestselling travel writer Robert Macfarlane wa...)
In Silt, bestselling travel writer Robert Macfarlane walks the Broomway, the deadliest path in Britain. In one of the most striking chapters of his brilliant 2012 book The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane walks the Essex offshore path which has claimed the lives of more than sixty people over the centuries. His companion on this atmospheric and potentially perilous journey is his old friend and photographer, David Quentin. In this special e-book edition, the Broomway section of The Old Ways appears alongside a run of twenty-two photographs taken that day by David, which form a haunting counterpoint to the text itself. In a newly written afterword, David reflects on the walk, on Robert Macfarlane's writing and on the fascinating legal terrain which paths like this one traverse even as they cross the land itself. Praise for The Old Ways: 'Macfarlane has shown how utterly beautiful a brilliantly written travel book can still be. As perfect as his now classic The Wild Places. Maybe it is even better than that' William Dalrymple, Observer 'A lovely book, a poetic investigation into what it is to follow a path, on land and at sea, in the footsteps of both our ancient predecessors and such writers as Edward Thomas: Macfarlane is reviving an entire body of nature writing here' David Sexton, Evening Standard 'Beautifully written, moving, thrilling. It reminded me of how much stranger and richer the world is... at walking speed' Philip Pullman, Guardian 'A magnificent meditation on walking and writing. An astonishingly haunted book' Adam Nicolson, Daily Telegraph 'The Old Ways sets the imagination tingling . . . it is like reading a prose Odyssey sprinkled with imagist poems' John Carey, Sunday Times Robert Macfarlane is the author of the award-winning Mountains of the Mind; The Wild Places; The Old Ways, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction; and Landmarks, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. David Quentin is a barrister specialising in tax law. He also takes photographs, teaches Cambridge undergraduates about versification and plays the bass guitar in London-based krautgoth noisegaze outfit The Murder Act.
https://www.amazon.com/Silt-Robert-Macfarlane-ebook/dp/B00BMF1UV0?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00BMF1UV0
(From the author of The Old Ways and Underland, an "eloque...)
From the author of The Old Ways and Underland, an "eloquent (and compulsively readable) reminder that, though we're laying waste the world, nature still holds sway over much of the earth's surface." --Bill McKibben Winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature and a finalist for the Orion Book Award Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? That is the question that Robert Macfarlane poses to himself as he embarks on a series of breathtaking journeys through some of the archipelago's most remarkable landscapes. He climbs, walks, and swims by day and spends his nights sleeping on cliff-tops and in ancient meadows and wildwoods. With elegance and passion he entwines history, memory, and landscape in a bewitching evocation of wildness and its vital importance.
https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Places-Landscapes-Robert-Macfarlane/dp/0143113933?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0143113933
(BAMB Beautiful Book Award 2017 Hay Festival Book of the Y...)
BAMB Beautiful Book Award 2017 Hay Festival Book of the Year THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER 'My top book of the year' Susan Hill, Spectator 'Gorgeous to look at and to read. Give it to a child to bring back the magic of language - and its scope' Jeanette Winterson, Guardian 'The most beautiful and thought-provoking book I've read this year' Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Observer From bestselling Landmarks author Robert Macfarlane and acclaimed artist & author Jackie Morris All over the country, there are words disappearing from children's lives. These are the words of the natural world - Dandelion, Otter, Bramble and Acorn, all gone. The rich landscape of wild imagination and wild play is rapidly fading from our children's minds. 'Gorgeous' Observer The Lost Words stands against the disappearance of wild childhood. It is a joyful celebration of nature words and the natural world they invoke. With acrostic spell-poems by award-winning writer Robert Macfarlane and hand-painted illustration by Jackie Morris, this enchanting book captures the irreplaceable magic of language and nature for all ages. 'Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris have made a thing of astonishing beauty' Alex Preston, Observer
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Words-Robert-Macfarlane/dp/0241253586?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0241253586
(The acclaimed author of The Wild Places and Underland exa...)
The acclaimed author of The Wild Places and Underland examines the subtle ways we are shaped by the landscapes through which we move In this exquisitely written book, which folds together natural history, cartography, geology, and literature, Robert Macfarlane sets off to follow the ancient routes that crisscross both the landscape of the British Isles and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the voices that haunt old paths and the stories our tracks tell. Macfarlane’s journeys 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. He matches strides with the footprints made by a man five thousand years ago near Liverpool, sails an open boat far out into the Atlantic at night, and commingles with walkers of many kinds, discovering that paths offer a means not just of traversing space but also of feeling, knowing, and thinking.
https://www.amazon.com/Old-Ways-Journey-Foot-Landscapes/dp/0147509793?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0147509793
(From the acclaimed author of The Old Ways and Landmarks -...)
From the acclaimed author of The Old Ways and Landmarks -- an essay on the joy of reading, for anyone who has ever loved a book Every book is a kind of gift to its reader, and the act of giving books is charged with a special emotional resonance. It is a meeting of three minds (the giver, the author, the recipient), an exchange of intellectual and psychological currency, that leaves each participant enriched. Here Robert Macfarlane recounts the story of a book he was given as a young man, and how he managed eventually to return the favour, though never repay the debt. From one of the most lyrical writers of our time comes a perfectly formed gem, a lyrical celebration of the transcendent power and humanity of the given book.
https://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Reading-Robert-Macfarlane/dp/0241978319?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0241978319
(From Robert Macfarlane, the acclaimed author of The Old W...)
From Robert Macfarlane, the acclaimed author of The Old Ways and Underland—a celebration of the language of landscape and the power of words to shape our sense of place For years now, the British writer Robert Macfarlane has been collecting place-words: terms for aspects of landscape, nature, and weather, drawn from dozens of languages and dialects of the British Isles. In this, his fifth book, Macfarlane brilliantly explores the linguistic and literary terrain of the British archipelago, from the Shetlands to Cornwall and from Cumbria to Suffolk, offering themed glossaries of hundreds of these rare, deeply local, poetical terms, organized by such geographical terrains as flatlands, uplands, waterlands, coastlands, woodlands, and underlands. Interspersed with this archive of place words are biographical essays in which Macfarlane writes of his favorite authors who have paid close attention to the natural world and who embody in their own work the huge richness of place language—from Barry Lopez and John Muir to Nan Shepard, J. A. Baker, and Roger Deakin. Landmarks is a book about the power of language and how it can become a way to know and love landscape, from a writer acclaimed for his own precision of utterance and distinctive, lyrical voice.
https://www.amazon.com/Landmarks-Landscapes-Robert-Macfarlane/dp/0241967872?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0241967872
(From fall to spring, J.A. Baker set out to track the dail...)
From fall to spring, J.A. Baker set out to track the daily comings and goings of a pair of peregrine falcons across the flat fen lands of eastern England. He followed the birds obsessively, observing them in the air and on the ground, in pursuit of their prey, making a kill, eating, and at rest, activities he describes with an extraordinary fusion of precision and poetry. And as he continued his mysterious private quest, his sense of human self slowly dissolved, to be replaced with the alien and implacable consciousness of a hawk. It is this extraordinary metamorphosis, magical and terrifying, that these beautifully written pages record.
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( An anthology of literary walks—from Austen, Woolf, and ...)
An anthology of literary walks—from Austen, Woolf, and Bronte to Colm Toibin, Bruce Chatwin, and Werner Herzog This is the ultimate companion for readers and walkers looking to take inspiration from poems, novels, plays, and journals. Walking is a fundamental act, often taken for granted, yet through the centuries it has inspired a fascinating literature. This, the first comprehensive anthology on the subject, delves into why we walk and how we walk, the differences between the country hike and the city stroll, walking and wooing, walking into trouble and marching out. A mix of fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and drama provides the reader with more than 200 booted authors. Xenophone and Baudelaire, Flora Thompson and Julian Barnes, Mark Twain and Roberto Calasso tramp the pages of this fascinating collection. Previously published with the title The Vintage Book of Walking.
https://www.amazon.com/While-Wandering-Companion-Duncan-Minshull/dp/009959336X?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=009959336X
(The basis for the new documentary film, Mountain: A Breat...)
The basis for the new documentary film, Mountain: A Breathtaking Voyage into the Extreme. Combining accounts of legendary mountain ascents with vivid descriptions of his own forays into wild, high landscapes, Robert McFarlane reveals how the mystery of the world’s highest places has came to grip the Western imagination—and perennially draws legions of adventurers up the most perilous slopes. His story begins three centuries ago, when mountains were feared as the forbidding abodes of dragons and other mysterious beasts. In the mid-1700s the attentions of both science and poetry sparked a passion for mountains; Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Lord Byron extolled the sublime experiences to be had on high; and by 1924 the death on Mt Everest of an Englishman named George Mallory came to symbolize the heroic ideals of his day. Macfarlane also reflects on fear, risk, and the shattering beauty of ice and snow, the competition and contemplation of the climb, and the strange alternate reality of high altitude, magically enveloping us in the allure of mountains at every level.
https://www.amazon.com/Mountains-Mind-Adventures-Reaching-Summit/dp/0375714065?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0375714065
Robert Macfarlane was born on April 23, 1815, in Rutherglen, near Glasgow, Scotland.
Macfarlane's educational advantages in youth were limited. He learned the art of dyeing at his father's works in Paisley.
Dissatisfied with the prospect of advancement in his native country, Macfarlane emigrated at the age of twenty to America and in 1840, he settled in the city of Albany, New York.
The scientific cast of his mind declared itself gradually and in 1846, with Joel Munsell, he began the publication of the Mechanics' Mirror. To this periodical, he contributed a series of scientific papers which brought him a reputation as an expositor of mechanical principles and opened a larger field to him.
In 1851, he published a History of Propellers and Steam Navigation with Biographical Sketches of the Early Inventors, which ran into several editions.
Macfarlane's connection with the Scientific American embraced a period of the Civil War in which the attention of the country was fixed on the machinery of marine warfare, in particular on the competing types of armored vessels; and his journal was among the stoutest champions of effective naval construction.
Threatened with failure of eyesight, he resigned his editorship, and, returning to Albany, purchased a dyeing establishment. He had not lost his interest in the industry and in 1860 had published A Practical Treatise on Dyeing and Calico-Printing. During his years in America his remembrance of Scotland and the fascination of Scottish history and romance had kept their hold on his mind.
His birthplace was not remote from the ancient possessions of the clan Macfarlane. He returned twice to his native land, and there found employment for his pen in sketches of travel, which appeared, under the name "Rutherglen, " in the Scottish American Journal. If Scottish antiquities and scenery appealed to him, hardly less did the story of Scottish emigration to America.
In Albany, he was active in the St. Andrew's Society, serving at one time as its president, and was president of the Burns Club.
Late in life, he removed to Brooklyn, where he died.
(The acclaimed author of The Wild Places and Underland exa...)
(From Robert Macfarlane, the acclaimed author of The Old W...)
(From the acclaimed author of The Old Ways and Landmarks -...)
( An anthology of literary walks—from Austen, Woolf, and ...)
(From the author of The Old Ways and Underland, an "eloque...)
(BAMB Beautiful Book Award 2017 Hay Festival Book of the Y...)
( In Silt, bestselling travel writer Robert Macfarlane wa...)
(The basis for the new documentary film, Mountain: A Breat...)
(From fall to spring, J.A. Baker set out to track the dail...)
Quotations: "The arrangement and description of many devices which have been invented to propel vessels, in order to prevent many ingenious men from wasting their time, talents and money on such projects. "
Macfarlane's wife was Anna Garth Macfarlane.