He has a lovely ear for imagery and his descriptions are striking and catch one off guard- not just for the word choice, but for the way that he processes the imagery. He is following those thinkers, walkers, and post-WWI soldiers who hoped that "walking such paths might lead you- in Hudson's phrase- to 'slip back out of this modern world'. This is an extract from Chapter 2 of Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways, Hay Festival Book of the Month for March. There isn't much of a progression, more a meandering of thought, so no pressure to complete the book.

The Old Ways,’ by Robert Macfarlane - The New York Times ‘The Old Ways,’ by Robert Macfarlane - The New York Times

What I like about this is that it helps me to see the land and the biosphere, feel the land and its life in my body, to relate myself to the land, even in memory, and in the future. Each chapter of The Old Ways is composed of many short passages built up like little cairns, or strewn like shards of china clay.As an American, I was not familiar with Thomas' writings, but found MacFarlane's delving into his life and jaunts interesting, and that he was a friend of Robert Frost, who inspired him to become a poet. Finally, I actually just deeply admire how thoroughly he seems to be able to remember and process each moment of his experience, filtering it through gorgeous literature and his prism of experience. He invokes, as he goes, hundreds of previous walkers, and hundreds of pathways – across silt, sand, granite, water, snow – each with its different rhythms and secrets. To walk in a wood is to find fault with Socrates's declaration that 'Trees and open country cannot teach me anything, whereas men in town do. With a steady command of the literature and history of each place he visits, [Macfarlane] tries ‘to read landscapes back into being.

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot eBook : Macfarlane, Robert

I read this on kindle, have bought several copies since - one to keep so I can flick through it and several to give away to people I care about. Humans are animals and like all animals we leave tracks as we walk: signs of passage made in snow, sand, mud, grass, dew, earth or moss. 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.The prehistoric track- ways of the English Downs can still be traced because on their close chalky soil, hard-packed by centuries of trampling, daisies flourish.

The Old Ways - Penguin Books UK The Old Ways - Penguin Books UK

Lyrical presentations of the author’s sensory experiences with the geography and the flora and fauna are harnessed as a gateway to history of the particular paths he took and the inspired outlooks of people who have thought deeply about the affinity of the human mind and civilization to walking in general and connectedness to the land. Macfarlane’s journeys 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. But 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. I was intrigued to come across this book, which according to Robert McFarlane, is “about people and place; about walking as a reconnoiter inward and the subtle ways in which we are shaped by the landscapes through which we move.In Scotland there are clachan and rathad – cairned paths and shieling paths – and in Japan the slender farm tracks that the poet Basho¯ followed in 1689 when writing his Narrow Road to the Far North. Just a passing comment, as this is not a concern of the book: I found it a bit odd that someone so attached to the landscape would seemingly have so little concern for environmental destruction or the slaughter of animals. But, he does pick some fine words and fine quotes, especially from Nan Shepherd, who I'd already been looking forward to reading. We easily forget that we are track-makers, though, because most of our journeys now occur on asphalt and concrete – and these are substances not easily impressed.