Overview

From the bestselling author of Underland and ""the great nature writer . . . of this generation"" (Wall Street Journal), a revelatory book that transforms how we imagine rivers--and life itself. Hailed in the New York Times as ""a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler,"" Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Macfarlane takes listeners on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada―imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane's house, a stream who flows through his own years and days. Powered by dazzling prose and lit throughout by other minds and voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers―and always has.

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Reviews

""A lyrical inquiry into the implications of treating rivers as living beings worthy of reverence and legal rights."" -- ""Publishers Weekly (starred review)"" ""Macfarlane places the reader in immersive contact with the nature we have been lulled and dulled into regarding as mere backdrop to human activity."" -- "" Los Angeles Review of Books"" ""The arguments for nature's rights, the drama of encounters, the crimes against rivers and all that they nurture, and the valor, genius, and uncanny gifts of eco-activists are all conveyed in gorgeously vibrant, fresh, and gripping language."" -- ""Booklist (starred review)"" ""Travel writing, ecological reporting, and history flow together in a portrait of one of nature's most powerful features."" -- ""Barnes&Noble.com""

Author Information

Robert Macfarlane is internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people, and place. His bestselling books include Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, The Wild Places, and Mountains of the Mind; they have been translated into more than thirty languages, won many prizes around the world, and been widely adapted for film, music, theater, radio, and dance. He has also written operas, plays, and films including River and Mountain, both narrated by Willem Dafoe. He has collaborated with artists including Olafur Eliasson and Stanley Donwood, and with the artist Jackie Morris he cocreated the internationally bestselling books of nature-poetry and art, The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. He is the recipient of the E. M. Forster Prize for Literature and the Henry David Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence. Macfarlane lives in Cambridge, England, where he is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Robert Macfarlane is internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people, and place. His bestselling books include Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, The Wild Places, and Mountains of the Mind; they have been translated into more than thirty languages, won many prizes around the world, and been widely adapted for film, music, theater, radio, and dance. He has also written operas, plays, and films including River and Mountain, both narrated by Willem Dafoe. He has collaborated with artists including Olafur Eliasson and Stanley Donwood, and with the artist Jackie Morris he cocreated the internationally bestselling books of nature-poetry and art, The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. He is the recipient of the E. M. Forster Prize for Literature and the Henry David Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence. Macfarlane lives in Cambridge, England, where he is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Robert Macfarlane is internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people, and place. His bestselling books include Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, The Wild Places, and Mountains of the Mind; they have been translated into more than thirty languages, won many prizes around the world, and been widely adapted for film, music, theater, radio, and dance. He has also written operas, plays, and films including River and Mountain, both narrated by Willem Dafoe. He has collaborated with artists including Olafur Eliasson and Stanley Donwood, and with the artist Jackie Morris he cocreated the internationally bestselling books of nature-poetry and art, The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. He is the recipient of the E. M. Forster Prize for Literature and the Henry David Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence. Macfarlane lives in Cambridge, England, where he is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

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