
The Old Ways
A Journey on Foot
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Narrated by:
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Robin Sachs
About this listen
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.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Churches are all around us. Their steeples remain landmarks in our towns, villages and cities, even as their influence and authority has waned. They contain art and architectural wonders - one huge gallery scattered, like a handful of jewels, across these isles. Award-winning writer Peter Ross sets out to tell their stories, and through them a story of Britain. Join him as he visits the unassuming Norfolk church which contains a disturbing secret, and London's mighty cathedrals with their histories of fire and love. Meet cats and bats, monks and druids, angels of oak and steel.
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A beautiful book
- By James Byron on 06-04-23
By: Peter Ross
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The Information
- A History, a Theory, a Flood
- By: James Gleick
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: A revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality - the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world. The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born.
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Brilliant book, heroic reader, better in print?
- By A reader on 03-12-11
By: James Gleick
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The Living Mountain
- By: Nan Shepherd
- Narrated by: Tilda Swinton, Robert Macfarlane, Jenny Odell
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Now with a new introduction by Robert Macfarlane and a new afterword by Jenny Odell, this masterpiece of nature writing by Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into “the high and holy places” of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world of spectacular cliffs, deep silences, and lakes so clear that they cannot be imagined. As she walks through clouds, endures blizzards, and watches the great spirals of eagles in flight, Shepherd comes to know something about the hidden life of this remarkable landscape—and also herself.
By: Nan Shepherd
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Coming into the Country
- By: John McPhee
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Coming into the Country is an unforgettable account of Alaska and Alaskans. It is a rich tapestry of vivid characters, observed landscapes, and descriptive narrative, in three principal segments that deal, respectively, with a total wilderness, with urban Alaska, and with life in the remoteness of the bush.
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Welcome to Alaska
- By James on 10-30-11
By: John McPhee
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Horizon
- By: Barry Lopez
- Narrated by: James Naughton
- Length: 22 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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From pole to pole and across decades of lived experience, National Book Award-winning author Barry Lopez delivers his most far-ranging, yet personal, work to date. Horizon moves indelibly, immersively, through the author’s travels to six regions of the world: from Western Oregon to the High Arctic; from the Galápagos to the Kenyan desert; from Botany Bay in Australia to finally, unforgettably, the ice shelves of Antarctica.
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Brilliant Wise and Thought Provoking
- By findley on 05-04-19
By: Barry Lopez
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Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World
- Essays
- By: Barry Lopez, Rebecca Solnit - introduction
- Narrated by: James Naughton, Rebecca Solnit
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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An ardent steward of the land, fearless traveler, and unrivaled observer of nature and culture, Barry Lopez died after a long illness on Christmas Day 2020. The previous summer, a wildfire had consumed much of what was dear to him in his home place and the community around it—a tragic reminder of the climate change of which he’d long warned.
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Intense and beautifully personal
- By Karen West on 06-28-23
By: Barry Lopez, and others
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Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
- By: Annie Dillard
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is the story of a dramatic year in Virginia's Roanoke Valley, where Annie Dillard set out to chronicle incidents of "beauty tangled in a rapture with violence." Dillard's personal narrative highlights one year's exploration on foot in the Virginia region through which Tinker Creek runs. In the summer, she stalks muskrats in the creek and contemplates wave mechanics; in the fall, she watches a monarch butterfly migration and dreams of Arctic caribou. She tries to con a coot; she collects pond water and examines it under a microscope.
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It's a Classic for a Reason
- By MWS on 02-20-25
By: Annie Dillard
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H Is for Hawk
- By: Helen Macdonald
- Narrated by: Helen Macdonald
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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When Helen MacDonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer captivated by hawks since childhood, she'd never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators: the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral anger mirrored her own.
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Mabel The Hawk--The Fire That Burned The Hurts Away
- By Sara on 04-09-15
By: Helen Macdonald
The Old Ways
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A walk with a wise old friend.
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Robin Sachs doing Robert MacFarlane
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ENJOY
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Profoundly engaging
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Well Written Meditation
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Excellent book for walkers!
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Would you listen to The Old Ways again? Why?
I would listen to this again for the beauty of its images and the places it took me to.What was one of the most memorable moments of The Old Ways?
... the description of Edward Thomas and his relationship with Robert Frost.Which character – as performed by Robin Sachs – was your favorite?
The favorite character must be the author himself as he appears in the words read by Robin Sachs..A lyric journey
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Better read than heard?
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Luminous
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