Robert Macfarlane writes books about landscape, nature and our relationship with the natural world. I have read a couple of his books which I have enjoyed – see my reviews here and here. The Old Ways came as part of my Advent Calendar of Books in 2023 – here is what I thought of it at the time. You can see how long it has taken me to get around to reading this book which is, of course, why I have these challenges.
This book is about the history of footpaths or ways. The author looks at why they were created where they were, how they were marked, how their purpose has changed over the years and how we use them now. He doesn’t restrict his narrative to land for he also looks at ancient routes around coasts used by small boats. He walks all of the ways he mentions in this book, and he travels to Pakistan, Tibet, Scotland, England and Israel.
The book isn’t just a description of the paths, although that is interesting, but of how we use paths and how we relate to them. I confess that I had never thought of most of what he covers in this book but I found it fascinating. On occasion, although I am not a walker, it resonated with me. The author is of the opinion that the landscape changes us as much as we change the landscape and he uses poetry and prose to illustrate this – he especially uses the poetry of Edward Thomas which he quotes throughout the book.
This is a great read. It’s far more interesting than you would imagine from the description and the history of how we use landscape and make our way across different terrains is captivating.
I am not keeping this author’s books (too many books and too few shelves) so I shall gift this to a friend of mine who is interested in old routes and has yet to read anything by this author.
Anne Is Reading 