Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane

Landmarks is about the power of language to shape our sense of place. It is a field guide to the literature of nature, and a glossary containing thousands of remarkable words used in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to describe land, nature and weather.

Travelling from Cumbria to the Cairngorms, and exploring the landscapes of Roger Deakin, J. A. Baker, Nan Shepherd and others, Robert Macfarlane shows that language, well used, is a keen way of knowing landscape, and a vital means of coming to love it.

A critically acclaimed writer, journalist and fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Robert Macfarlane’s wide-ranging non-fiction writing encompasses nature, language, memory, landscape, literature and travel. His books include The Old Ways, Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, Holloway (with Stanley Donwood and Dan Richards) and Landmarks.

“A story like this is salutary…Landmarks is a book that ought to be read by policymakers, educators, armchair environmentalists and active conservationists the world over.” – the Guardian

“The writing is full of clarity and internal reflections and the chapters ripple over into each other like a linked chain of mountain pools…. What is remarkable about these words is how precise they are, and how deeply local. They feel as if they somehow grew out of the land itself. A delight.” – the Sunday Times Magazine 

“Enormously pleasurable, deeply moving . . . Landmarks is both a bid to save our rich hoard of landscape language, and a blow struck for the power of a deep creative relationship to place.” – Financial Times

“The mood is one of celebration… [Landmarks is] the product of an active academic intelligence and emotional generosity, irradiated by a profound sense of wonder… Few books give such a sense of enchantment; it is a book to give to many, and to return to repeatedly.” – the Independent

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

ISBN: 9780241967874

Number of pages: 448

Weight: 310 g

Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 27 mm