We imagine that this might be one of our more popular book club choices, as this month we’re giving away 12 copies of Robert Macfarlane’s fantastic new book to members of our Dabbler Book Club and our esteemed, yet highly secretive League of Dabblers…if you haven’t yet joined up, now would be a good time to do so…
In The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove-roads and sea paths that form part of a vast network of routes criss-crossing the landscape. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, of pilgrimage and ritual, and of songlines and their singers. Above all this is a book about people and place: about walking as a reconnoitre inwards, and the subtle ways in which we are shaped by the territories through which we move.
Told in Macfarlane’s distinctive and celebrated voice, the book folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology and literature. His tracks take him from the chalk downs of England to the bird-islands of the Scottish northwest, and from the disputed territories of Palestine to the sacred landscapes of Spain and the Himalayas. Along the way he walks stride for stride with a 5000-year-old man near Liverpool, follows the ‘deadliest path in Britain’, sails an open boat out into the Atlantic at night, and crosses paths with walkers of many kinds – wanderers, wayfarers, pilgrims, guides, shamans, poets, trespassers and devouts.
He discovers that paths offer not just means of traversing space, but also of feeling, knowing and thinking. The old ways lead us unexpectedly to the new, and the voyage out is always a voyage inwards.
‘Sublime writing . . . sets the imagination tingling . . . Macfarlane’s way of writing [is] free, exploratory, rambling and haphazard but resourceful, individual, following his own whims, and laying an irresistible trail for readers to follow’ Sunday Times
We have ten copies to give away to lucky members of the Dabbler Book Club, and two copies for members of the League of Dabblers.
How to get a free copy of The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane
If you are already a member of the Dabbler Book Club you will automatically be entered into the draw. If you haven’t already joined, all you have to do is sign up below. It’s free.
After that, you don’t have to do anything. All members will be automatically entered into the ballot for one of 10 free review copies, which will take place on Thursday 12th July. We’ll email the winners, at which point you can opt out if you really don’t want that month’s choice and would rather another member got the chance.
See more information about the Dabbler Book Club here. Two copies are set aside exclusively for members of the League of Dabblers, so they will have a greater chance of winning. Not only that, but they also get to go to sleep every night safe in the knowledge that they are gods amongst men.
We’ll be reviewing The Old Ways in the next month or two, and you can contribute your thoughts (though you’re not obliged to.)
Thank you to our friends at Penguin for kindly providing the copies.
***
Coming soon – more reviews, prize draws, signed copies, exclusive previews and more…
Over the coming months we’ve got some great literary giveaways exclusively for the Dabbler Book Club, including free copies, tickets to literary events and much more.
[contact-form 2 “Contact form 1_copy”]
