Is a River Alive?
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
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.
