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The Old Ways

The Old Ways

  • A Journey on Foot

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE

The original bestseller from the beloved author of UNDERLAND, LANDMARKS and THE LOST WORDS - Robert Macfarlane travels Britain's ancient paths and discovers the secrets of our beautiful, underappreciated landscape

'The Old Ways confirms Macfarlane's reputation as one of the most eloquent and observant of contemporary writers about nature' Scotland on Sunday

Following the tracks, holloways, drove-roads and sea paths that form part of a vast ancient network of routes criss-crossing the British Isles and beyond, Robert Macfarlane discovers a lost world - a landscape of the feet and the mind, of pilgrimage and ritual, of stories and ghosts; above all of the places and journeys which inspire and inhabit our imaginations.

'Sublime . . . It sets the imagination tingling, laying an irresistible trail for readers to follow' Sunday Times

'Read this and it will be impossible to take an unremarkable walk again' Metro

'He has a rare physical intelligence and affords total immersion in place, elements and the passage of time: wonderful' Antony Gormley

Reviews

  • A wonderful book: Macfarlane has a rare physical intelligence, and his writing affords total immersion in place, elements and the passage of time

    Antony Gormley

  • A naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler, a writer whose ideas and reach far transcend the physical region he explores

    The New York Times Book Review

  • [Mountains of the Mind is] a distinguished book that jolted my heart. Adventurous, passionate, intensely romantic . . . fizzes with insights

    Roger Deakin

  • A new naturalist to set beside the classics in our literature

    Evening Standard

  • The Old Ways confirms Robert Macfarlane's reputation as one of the most eloquent and observant of contemporary writers about nature

    Scotland on Sunday

  • Macfarlane relishes wild, as well as old, places. He writes about both beautifully . . . I love to read Macfarlane

    Financial Times

  • Read this and it will be impossible to take an unremarkable walk again

    Metro

More from this Author

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About the Author

Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane is the bestselling author of Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Landmarks, and Underland, and co-creator of The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. 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. Robert Macfarlane 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. He is now working on his third book with long-time collaborator, Jackie Morris: The Book of Birds.

Robert Macfarlane

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Recommendations

The essential Robert Macfarlane reading list
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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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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

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