Robert Macfarlane (2012 event)

In The Old Ways, shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize, the celebrated author Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge home to follow the ancient tracks, drove-roads and sea paths that form part of a vast network of routes criss-crossing the British landscape and its waters, and connecting them to the continents beyond. 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 his book is about people and place and the subtle ways in which we are shaped by the landscapes through which we move. Told in Macfarlane's distinctive voice, the book folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology and literature. In this event, recorded live at the 2012 Edinburgh International Book Festival, he talks to Stuart Kelly, the literary editor of Scotland On Sunday.