The Old Ways

A Journey on Foot

By: Robert Macfarlane

Narrated by: Robin Sachs

Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins

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.

Critic reviews

"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])

A perfect pairing of prose and narrator

This book is about walking along old paths, and not much more than that, however Macfarlane's prose is flawless and beautifully descriptive; it immediately drew me in. The narrator's voice is soft and hypnotic with a slight English lilt. I have never heard a better pairing of book and narrator. They weave in a considerable amount of history about these paths along the way, from Britain to Israel to Spain to Tibet. I enjoyed it enough to read it again.

Meditative, Great for Quieting Your Mind for Bed

This book is absolutely wonderful! I use it mostly to get my mind in the state for sleep. I sometimes have difficulty falling to sleep because my mind won't quiet. In those cases, I climb into bed and turn off the lights and play this book for 15 minutes. I usually don't fall asleep until after the 15 minutes are up but I usually fall asleep soon after. It's not that this book is so boring it puts you to sleep, it's that this book puts you more into a meditative and relaxed mood. MacFarlane's descriptions are so vivid and the prose so beautiful that you feel you are right there with him discovering these new places. Robin Sachs narrating is so relaxing and the perfect pace for the story.

Walking into bliss

This summer I have been listening to books on Audible to help take me away from the daily news, which can be anxiety producing. While gardening, I escape into both fiction and non-fiction. In the case of this delicious book, I felt nurtured, inspired, riveted, intrigued, sometimes giggling and even crying. Mr. Macfarlane transported me to another world and gave me endless reasons to smile. I could go on and on, but will simply say, if you enjoy nature, hiking, Thoreau, Frost, Berry, and gifted writing, this book will become a favorite.

Landscapes I will never walk

Where does The Old Ways rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Towards the top of the list.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Old Ways?

Walking in Israel with Palestinians.

What about Robin Sachs’s performance did you like?

Excellent reading and very well paced.

Excellent book for walkers!

Robert MacFarlane brings to life the pathways and roads less traveled at the human speed of 3 mph. Great book!!!

Highly recommend

Great listening experience. Narrated perfectly, though perhaps a tad sleep inducing. Excellent to listen to while wandering around less exciting vistas or not taking a single step.

A lyric journey

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..

Picture the Broomway

A story of journeys beginning on the old paths, I can feel the terror and interest of the Broomway over the foreshore, as well as the coffin tracks into the moors in the heart of England. This book covers the journey of walking, and the stories move at about that pace. If you have the time for this level of depth, the book will inspire a few long walks. For those in a hurry, this story will bore you.

lyrical, contemplative, relaxing

I really enjoyed listening to these stories of walking and retellings of the holistories, recent and ancient, of other walkers and the roads themselves. this was a welcome reprieve from the day to day stress of 2020

Could really do without the accents

This is an incredible book and i will buy the paper version. Spare yourself these awful and unnecessary accents and do the same