Is a River Alive?
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4.2 • 19 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling author of Underland and "the great nature writer . . . of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), a revelatory book that transforms how we imagine rivers—and life itself.
Hailed in the New York Times as "a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler," Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law.
Macfarlane takes listeners on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada―imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane's house, a stream who flows through his own years and days. Powered by dazzling prose and lit throughout by other minds and voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers―and always has.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A river can flood, feed, vanish, or remember. And in naturalist Robert Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive?, it can also speak, if we’re willing to listen. Blending travel writing, environmental history, and quiet personal reflection, Macfarlane journeys from cloud forest to coastline, reporting on how different communities are beginning to treat rivers not just as resources but as living beings with rights. Alongside these global stories, Macfarlane returns often to a chalk stream near his own home, threading the political with the personal as he reflects on time, belonging, and ecological care. His prose moves with clarity and depth, inviting you to see rivers as fellow travelers in our shared world. As the narrator, Macfarlane has a lyrical cadence that makes his prose feel even more intimate and emotionally affecting. Is a River Alive? is both a plea and a promise that we might live in a better world if we listen when it tries to speak.
Customer Reviews
Life, reduced to resource
A ‘fuzz in the matrix’ called me to this book. I have recently read books about investing and psychology, but the philosophical question and rave reviews drew me in.
There’s this expansive idea of living waters. The central thesis is that seeing rivers as alive changes how we think, feel, and act toward them.
- Rivers remember
- Water speaks
Robert McFarlane writes about sensory details in prose, almost like Seamus Heaney poems.
Waters are essential to life. Rivers supply ecosystems. Rivers die and the surrounding ecosystem withers with it. If rivers can die, it makes some sense that they can be alive and changing, and deserve additional protection.
In a world where financial incentives, motivated reasoning, and extractive forces can sometimes overcome protective rights and worthwhile ideas, will it matter? Our most powerful continue to repeat Gilgamesh’s failures with few becoming responsible rulers.
One of my favorite books of all time..
I heard about this book from a review on NPR, and from the first moment, I was hooked. It was interesting and poetic, and not only did I learn a great deal, but I became a huge fan of each person highlighted.
Yes, it seems rivers ARE alive, and so is this book!