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Book Cover for: Ghostways: Two Journeys in Unquiet Places, Robert MacFarlane

Ghostways: Two Journeys in Unquiet Places

Robert MacFarlane

Critic Reviews

Good

Based on 6 reviews on

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In Holloway, "a perfect miniature prose-poem" (William Dalrymple), Macfarlane, artist Stanley Donwood, and writer Dan Richards travel to Dorset, near the south coast of England, to explore a famed "hollowed way"--a path used by walkers and riders for so many centuries that it has become worn far down into the soft golden bedrock of the region.

In Ness, "a triumphant libretto of mythic modernism for our poisoned age" (Max Porter), Macfarlane and Donwood create a modern myth about Orford Ness, the ten-mile-long shingle spit that lies off the coast of East Anglia, which the British government used for decades to conduct secret weapons tests.

Book Details

  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
  • Publish Date: Nov 24th, 2020
  • Pages: 144
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.20in - 5.40in - 0.50in - 0.40lb
  • EAN: 9781324015826
  • Categories: EssaysEnvironmental Conservation & Protection - General

About the Author

Donwood, Stanley: - Stanley Donwood is a graphic designer and artist who has worked with the band Radiohead, producing artwork for their albums and promotional materials. His books include Bad Island, Catacombs of Terror!, Slowly Downward, Small Thoughts, and There Will Be No Quiet. He lives in London.
Richards, Dan: - Dan Richards is author of several books including The Beechwood Airship Interviews and Climbing Days. Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth was published by Canongate in 2019. He writes for various papers and magazines including The Guardian, Economist, and Monocle, and lives in Edinburgh.
MacFarlane, Robert: - Robert Macfarlane is internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people, and place. His best-selling 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, theatre, 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 co-created the internationally best-selling 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.

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

A strangely lovely book...Contemplative, impressionistic and suffused with aspects of the mythic, these pieces operate at times like prose poems....--David L. Ulin "Los Angeles Times"
These stories convey [Macfarlane's] talent for elevating even modest wonders with sincere attention....Macfarlane approaches the natural world with humility and a deep appreciation for the spirits that haunt a landscape.--Emily Borrow "Wall Street Journal"
[A]n almost-too-fitting natural history for [2020]...Ghostways is designed to evoke more than inform, and often echoes what you bring to it...--Genevieve Valentine "NPR"
A lovely evocation of some 'spectral and unreal' elements of the British landscape.-- "Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"