I bought this book when I left Waterstone's over a year ago. I had been looking forward to reading it so much that I have been saving it.
The thing which struck me most was how generous Macfarlane is, the corner of my copy is swollen with the amount of pages I have turned over, of things I want to read again or look up later. He is incredibly interesting, and the whole book has the feel of the author chatting in your ear. He talks to you as if you are beside him, in the landscape seeing the same things he is.
The Old Ways is about following ancient pathways - paths and routes on land and sea which have been followed for generations. One of the triggers of the book is Edward Thomas, and he features heavily in the book, in terms of poetry and his life story and thought processes. It is interesting, refreshing and brilliant that when trying to explain and investigate these old routes Macfarlane turns, not to historians and archeologists, but artists, writers and poets. It is a book with a lot of integrity and is fascinating. It makes you want to be in the wild and to be more attune to the past and present around you in those wild, old landscapes.
