Masthead
Masthead

Robert Macfarlane

Underland

  • Underland

  • A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

    WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2019
    WINNER OF THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2020
    SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2020

    'You'd be crazy not to read this book' The Sunday Times

    A Guardian Best Book of the 21st Century

    The highly anticipated new book from the internationally bestselling, prize-winning author of Landmarks, The Lost Words and The Old Ways

    Discover the hidden worlds beneath our feet...

    In Underland, Robert Macfarlane takes us on a journey into the worlds beneath our feet. From the ice-blue depths of Greenland's glaciers, to the underground networks by which trees communicate, from Bronze Age burial chambers to the rock art of remote Arctic sea-caves, this is a deep-time voyage into the planet's past and future.

    Global in its geography, gripping in its voice and haunting in its implications, Underland is a work of huge range and power, and a remarkable new chapter in Macfarlane's long-term exploration of landscape and the human heart.

    SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2020

    'Underland is a magnificent feat of writing, travelling and thinking that feels genuinely frontier pushing, unsettling and exploratory' Evening Standard

    'Marvellous... Neverending curiosity, generosity of spirit, erudition, bravery and clarity... This is a book well worth reading' The Times

    'Extraordinary... at once learned and readable, thrilling and beautifully written' Observer

Underland
Underland
Robert Macfarlane
Ness
Ness
  • Robert Macfarlane
  • Stanley Donwood
The Lost Words
The Lost Words
  • Jackie Morris
  • Robert Macfarlane
The Gifts of Reading
The Gifts of Reading
Robert Macfarlane
Landmarks
Landmarks
Robert Macfarlane
Arctic Dreams
Arctic Dreams
Barry Lopez
The Old Ways
The Old Ways
Robert Macfarlane
Silt
Silt
Robert Macfarlane
The Death of Grass
The Death of Grass
John Christopher
The Worm Forgives the Plough
The Worm Forgives the Plough
John Stewart Collis

1203 Books
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Events

The Lost Spells: Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris in conversation, 1st October
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Features

‘I feared I would never paint again’: Behind the cover of ‘The Lost Spells’

After The Lost Words, illustrator Jackie Morris decided to collaborate once again with writer Robert Macfarlane. But a family tragedy meant she had to work in the toughest of circumstances. Here she shares her story, and reveals the beautiful artwork itself.
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Recommendations

The essential Robert Macfarlane reading list
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News

Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris to collaborate on 'The Book of Birds'

Authors of The Lost Words are creating a new kind of field guide to celebrate the nearly 70 species of birds currently in severe decline in the UK.
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Features

The stories behind the notebooks that documented Rob MacFarlane's travels underground

As Robert Macfarlane prepared to write Underland, he recorded everything in a series of notebooks. Battered, bruised and smudged, they accompanied the writer from the catacombs of Paris to Greenlandic glaciers, archiving the landscape.
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Features

Robert Macfarlane on working with artist Stanley Donwood for the cover of Underland

Robert Macfarlane’s new book Underland explores the lost worlds that lie beneath our feet. Here, he explains why ‘Nether’, a painting by long-time collaborator and Radiohead artist Stanley Donwood, is the perfect image for the book’s cover, both artistically and symbolically.
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The Lost Words wins the Beautiful Book Award at this year's Books Are My Bag Reader's Awards

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Take a look inside The Lost Words

Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris discuss designing The Lost Words – a gorgeously illustrated book that conjures lost words and and species back into our everyday lives.
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Features

Readers send their favourite nature words to Landmarks author Robert Macfarlane

Ten years ago the academic and travel writer embarked on a mission to collect the evocative and often obscure words associated with the landscape, publishing them in Landmarks in 2015. He's since been sent thousands more by people from around the world

Robert Macfarlane is the author of Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Landmarks, and The Lost Words, co-created with Jackie Morris. Mountains of the Mind won the Guardian First Book Award and the Somerset Maugham Award and The Wild Places won the Boardman-Tasker Award. Both books have been adapted for television by the BBC. The Lost Words won the Books Are My Bag Beautiful Book Award and the Hay Festival Book of the Year. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and writes on environmentalism, literature and travel for publications including the Guardian, the Sunday Times and The New York Times.

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