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  • The Old Ways

  • A Journey on Foot
  • Written by: Robert Macfarlane
  • Narrated by: Robin Sachs
  • Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (33 ratings)

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The Old Ways cover art

The Old Ways

Written by: Robert Macfarlane
Narrated by: Robin Sachs
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Publisher's Summary

From the acclaimed author of The Wild Places comes 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 Macfarlane’s distinctive voice, The Old Ways folds 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 kinds - wanderers, 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.

Robert Macfarlane is the author of the prize-winning Mountains of the Mind and The Wild Places, both of which were New York Times Notable Books. He has contributed to Harper’s, Granta, the Observer, Times Literary Supplement, and London Review of Books. He is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
©2012 Robert Macfarlane (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
World Europe Travel Writing & Commentary Nature & Ecology
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What the critics say

"Macfarlane immerses himself in regions we may have thought familiar, resurrecting them newly potent and sometimes beautifully strange. In a moving achievement, he returns our heritage to us." (Colin Thubron, New York Times best-selling author)
"In this intricate, sensuous, haunted book, each journey is part of other journeys, and there are no clear divisions to be made.… The walking of paths is, to [Macfarlane], an education, and symbolic, too, of the very process by which we learn things: testing, wandering about a bit, hitting our stride, looking ahead and behind.…This is a spacious and inclusive book, which allows for many shifts in emphasis, and which, like the best paths, is always different when you go back to look at it again." ( Guardian [London])
"From the very first page…you know that the most valuable thing about The Old Ways is going to be the writing…. I found myself hoarding images like trophies as I turned the pages.… It is like reading a prose Odyssey sprinkled with imagist poems.… You never get the feeling that the poetry is being used to prettify what he sees. His omnivorous eye takes in everything, and his camera-shutter brain records it." ( Sunday Times [London])

What listeners say about The Old Ways

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Profile Image for KN
  • KN
  • 2023-07-14

Literary magic!

This narration took me into history, geomorphology, geology, biology/ecology and culture of many specific interesting and mostly natural areas in the United Kingdom and beyond, without me even noticing that I was learning. I was simply entranced by the 'present moment' McFarlane creates line by line in this incredible example of literary travel writing. I listen to it often!

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Profile Image for Amanda Hugnkiss

The perfect bedtime book

this is exactly the kind of book you need at night before sleep relaxing unchallenging

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Profile Image for Allan Cain

Such a beautiful book

This audiobook has been such a pleasure to read, walking through time and landscapes. The narrator was excellent.

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Profile Image for Jamie Levine

Fascinating walking old paths

Lots of details and interesting parts. It drags at bit at times. My favourite sections we're the paths at sea and the chalk roads of England and Scotland. It's not as good a read as his new book Underland that I loved and listened to it twice.

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Profile Image for JASMINE DONELLE

Okay

I find it to bland. Could have used a bit more character. Unless you are looking for something very calming, then this is good.

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Profile Image for Shelley

Profound and Beautiful

I loved this book, and plan to listen to as many more by this Author (and Reader) as Audible has available!
Highly recommend for All history-lovers, lyricists, poets and deep-thinkers!

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Profile Image for Schvenn

Boring boring boring

I can't believe I managed a whole hour of those drivel. Listen to the sample and then imagine 7 hours of the exact same thing, without reprieve. This is the first book I've ever given up on, ever.

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