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  • Published: 5 March 2015
  • ISBN: 9780241972731
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download

Landmarks




A joyous meditation on words, landscape and the relationship between the two, from the bestselling author of The Old Ways

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Landmarks, a fascinating exploration of the relationship between language and landscapes by Robert Macfarlane, read by Roy McMillan.

Words are grained into our landscapes, and landscapes are grained into our words. 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.

The audiobook version contains an exclusive bonus chapter - a recording of Finlay MacLeod (a novelist, historian, broadcaster, archivist and one of the dedicatees of Landmarks) reading words and definitions from his Peat Glossary for the Isle of Lewis. This hoard of rare and evocative terms was one of the inspiring documents for the book.

Finlay's voice is also used as a divider between chapters; and the other glossaries in the text are themselves bracketed with appropriate sound effects.

  • Published: 5 March 2015
  • ISBN: 9780241972731
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download

About the authors

Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane is the author of Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Landmarks, and The Lost Words, co-created with Jackie Morris. Mountains of the Mind won the Guardian First Book Award and the Somerset Maugham Award and The Wild Places won the Boardman-Tasker Award. Both books have been adapted for television by the BBC. The Lost Words won the Books Are My Bag Beautiful Book Award and the Hay Festival Book of the Year. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and writes on environmentalism, literature and travel for publications including the Guardian, the Sunday Times and The New York Times.

Grahame Sydney

Grahame Sydney is one of NZ's major artists, best known for his glorious landscapes of Central Otago. Working in oils, watercolours, egg tempera, etchings and lithographs, his paintings have been widely exhibited and are held in private and public collections worldwide. Sydney is also a talented, highly regarded photographer. In 2003, he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to painting.