Robert Macfarlane (2012 event)

In The Old Ways, shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize, the
celebrated author Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge
home to follow the ancient tracks, drove-roads and sea paths that
form part of a vast network of routes criss-crossing the British
landscape and its waters, and connecting them to the continents
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, of pilgrimage and ritual, and of songlines
and their singers. Above all his book is about people and place
and the subtle ways in which we are shaped by the landscapes
through which we move. Told in Macfarlane's distinctive voice,
the book folds together natural history, cartography, geology,
archaeology and literature. In this event, recorded live at the
2012 Edinburgh International Book Festival, he talks to Stuart
Kelly, the literary editor of Scotland On Sunday.