Rob Macfarlane : ‘Sometimes I felt as if the river was writing me’

The writer and poet on reimagining rivers as living beings, the ecological crisis near and far and why copyright laws should protect natureRobert Macfarlane has been called the “great nature writer and nature poet of this generation”. A teacher, campaigner and mountaineer, he has been exploring the relationship between landscape and people since his breakthrough book, Mountains of the Mind, in 2003. His latest work, Is a River Alive?, was more than four years in the making, and, he says, the most urgent book he has written.Q: Your book is poignant and inspiring, but one part that made me laugh is where you first tell your son the title and he replies, “Duh, of course it’s alive. That’s going to be a really short book.” So, I should first congratulate you on stringing it out for more than 350 pages! Continue reading...

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