Author Robert Macfarlane reads from his latest book, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot.
Folding together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology and literature, Macfarlane explores the chalk downs of England, the bird-islands of the Scottish northwest, the disputed territories of Palestine, the sacred landscapes of Spain, and the Himalayas. The Old Ways is about how paths and tracks [trails] of all kinds have had an influence well beyond their immediate function of getting people from A to B.
…He discovers that paths offer not just means of traversing space, but also of feeling, knowing and thinking. The old ways lead us unexpectedly to the new, and the voyage out is always a voyage inwards.
Read more here.
Macfarlane on trails and the landscape’s impact on the human heart: