Landmarks
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Landmarks
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Narrated by:
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Roy McMillan
About this listen
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 (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 bracketed with appropriate sound effects.
©2015 Robert Macfarlane (P)2015 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
Where does Landmarks rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I love Robert MacFarlane's books. His ideas about landscape and our relationship to it are endlessly stimulating. For me, because this is not a narrative as such, I sometimes had to rewind to pick up the thread of the thoughts.Any additional comments?
The glossary of words for landscape features, beautifully read, is poetry and made me want to buy the physical book so I could browse at my own pace but the physical book is printed on such nasty paper I didn't.This book is a poem
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Beautiful
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Would you consider the audio edition of Landmarks to be better than the print version?
Roy McMillan's voice is certainly a reason to choose the audio version.What other book might you compare Landmarks to, and why?
The Old Ways also by Robert Macfarlane and read by Roy McMillan.What about Roy McMillan’s performance did you like?
Brilliant!Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Laugh and cry out loud!Any additional comments?
Because of this book I have now read other books that were superb. J A Bakers The Peregrine will now be one of my favourite books ever... it would be a brilliant audio book but I'd have to think hard about who could be the voice.A taster for many other wonderful authors!
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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. The author effortlessly takes you into his subjects. His writing is taut, precise and evocative.What did you like best about this story?
Each chapter is dedicated to a different author/topic. Some reviewers didn't like this, but I loved it. It allowed for journeys into particular words and stories associated with the underlying topic that I found fascinating.What does Roy McMillan bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
He reads beautifully; with him the stories come alive. You are climbing the mountain with him, swimming in icy water alongside him, clambering into caves as he explores. It's a full on sensory experience.Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Yes. It made me furious to learn nature related words were being removed from children's dictionaries as they were "no longer deemed relevant". It also created a burning desire to get out there and experience some of the places or things discussed.Any additional comments?
I couldn't tear myself away from this recording. The only downside..I became so caught up in the books and authors described in each chapter that I've had to buy many of them AND a hard copy of Landmarks so that I have easy access to the glossaries!Love it, but it's costing me a fortune!
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I will also buy "Landmarks" when it appears in paperback, for the same reasons. Even though many chapters are glossaries -- and not as well suited to listening as to reading -- the remaining chapters are chiefly an exposition of the writing of other "Nature" writers such as Nan Shepherd, J A Baker, Macfarlane's friend Roger Deakin, the American John Muir and others.
The result is an impassioned and expert dissertation on the rich language used in the past to define Nature, focussing on English, its dialects, and the Celtic languages of Britain.
The historical vignettes presented, such as the interaction between John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt resulting in the creation of Yosemite National Park, were fascinating and the final chapter, Childish, was a brilliant expansion of the theme.
Enjoy listening... then buy the book
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Loved it.
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He is quite clearly fascinated with the complex and dynamic relationships people form with the landscape, with how others, particularly other exceptionally talented writers have approached the same or similar perspectives and philosophical points.
This leads to his work being deep, rich and layered with meanings and contexts.
MacFarlane manages to do this without leaving the reader behind, without any condescension so that we are swept along with his passion and can share in both his educated views and his almost child like wonder at the magic of it all.
This, and the other work I have read of MacFarlane, have been in the best tradition of academic work which makes accessible the knowledge of so much studying to the widest and hopefully most curious of readers.
I suspect that most of his readers will live in towns and cities, in a suburban landscape much removed from those he views quite tenderly and therein is the value; the link between people and the land from which they ultimately came.
And I hope this is not too disparaging to put at the end, it was beautiful read, and like all well narrated work the voice is ultimately subsumed by the words which is, of course, the point; to be a neutral conduit for the ideas within the work.
An excellent exploration of language and place
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A wonderful book
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Loved this book!
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I was very happy with this and very interested - although not entirely satisfied in the way in which the promise was delivered through. The ‘falling short’ for me was that the individual characters who were used to deliver the message - a Lancastrian musician being one example - seemed to lack depth of characterisation and, where offered, their link with the land seemed at times tenuous. This, of course, from me as anything but a son of the land - albeit, a Welsh and Irish heritage does give one a sense of entitlement when it comes to the wide-open spaces in the world of nature-spirituality.
What was enlightening, was the worrying news that so many common-place words now have no place (and are they so common?) with the youngest literate generation that we currently have in our care. If nothing else, the stir that this caused me was justification enough to read this work - but, to be fair there were lots of small pleasures along the route (Tyneside to South Shields, south along the river on a daily commute as it happens).
Routed in the land...flies in the mind.
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