Is a River Alive?

This book is itself a river of poetic prose, an invitation to get onboard and float through the rapids of encounters with places and people, the eddies of ideas, to navigate the resurgence of Indigenous worldviews through three extraordinary journeys recounted with a vividness that lifts readers out of themselves and into these waterscapes. Read it for pleasure, read it for illumination, read it for confirmation that our world is changing in wonderful as well as terrible ways

Rebecca Solnit

One of the big publishing events (if not the biggest) of 2025 – a new book by Robert Macfarlane . . . Personal as well as political, it’s almost as certain to shift readerly perspectives as it is to be a bestseller

Observer, ‘Nonfiction to look forward to in 2025’

Is A River Alive? is a beautifully written, poetic testament to the vitality of the Earth and the forms of politics that can be based upon that premise

Amitav Ghosh

This book is a beautiful, wild exploration of an ancient idea: that rivers are living participants in a living world. Robert Macfarlane’s astonishing telling of the lives of three rivers reveals how these vital flow forms have the power not only to shape and reshape the planet, but also our thoughts, feelings, and worldviews. Is a River Alive? is a breathtaking work that speaks powerfully to this moment of crisis and transformation

Merlin Sheldrake

Robert Macfarlane is a once-in-a-generation virtuoso, and I don’t know when his kaleidoscopic language and world-expanding scholarship have been used to more potent effect than in this impassioned, resounding affirmative to the title’s urgent question

John Vaillant

Is a River Alive? is one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time—exciting, brilliantly comprehensive, mind-altering. In one of its many stunning moments, Macfarlane describes the myriad rivers trapped and buried under the concrete of our cities. "Daylighting" occurs on those rare occasions when these ghost-rivers are dug out & released to the surface to feel the sun, to expand—majestic creatures—and spread life once again. To read this book is to feel your ghosted soul undergo such "daylighting"—metaphysical, political, emotional, linguistic. Any soul going dormant, any citizen going numb, will be revivified and propelled back to their essential core, where rage, wonder, and imagination intertwine, and a powerful hope for the earth arises. A spellbinding, life-changing work

Jorie Graham

Like its subject, Is a River Alive? is work of flow and counter-flow. It is lyrical, evocative, closely observed, and deeply moving. Robert Macfarlane offers new ways to think and, just as importantly, feel about the majestic and mysterious non-human world

Elizabeth Kolbert

Profound and playful, revelatory and realistic, intimate and epic, humble and absolutely huge – this supremely enjoyable masterpiece will change the world

Patrick Barkham

Shattering and sublime, Is a River Alive? offers a question, an answer, and perhaps the greatest challenge and opportunity of our times: to accept our place in the mesh of things and act accordingly in the interests of the whole

Amy Jane Beer

A rich and visionary work of immense beauty. Macfarlane is a memory keeper. What is broken in our societies, he mends with words. Rarely does a book hold such power, passion, and poetry in its exploration of nature. Read this to feel inspired, moved, and ultimately, alive

Elif Shafak

In answering this essential question of matter or life-force, Macfarlane has created a braided, roaring and brilliant book that is a true landmark in more-than-human writing . . . A personal and beautifully poetic polemic, this may be Macfarlane’s best book yet

Rob Cowen

The deep sincerity Robert Macfarlane brings to his efforts to meet the rivers in Ecuador, India and (especially) Quebec with his whole being makes ‘Is A River Alive?’ a very special read. That and the generous spotlight he shines on those who’ve dedicated their lives to saving the rivers in their midst. Inevitably, his explorations beget another question for us all: ‘How alive can a human be to a river (or any other species)?

Jini Reddy

Everyone who has ever found something to love in a river should find something to love in this book. It is a masterpiece

The Economist

The book is a delight . . . So stirring, so surprising, so acute

The Times

Is a River Alive? is a powerful synthesis of literature, activism and ethics, reshaping the way we perceive the natural world

Alex Preston, Observer

The narrative pull is strong in this book. I kept wanting to go back to it. Macfarlane has yet again demonstrated his genius as an author in creating a book that is alive, that has personality, that talked to me. I was sad when it ended. It has flowed into my daily thoughts ever since, much like a river continues to flow into the sea

Evening Standard

Macfarlane’s book is timely

Guardian, Book of the Day

Beautiful, wild and wildly provocative

New Scientist

It will change the way you think about rivers, and in turn, nature herself

iPaper

Macfarlane confronts the realities of the living, beating heart of the riverine world…With crystalline clarity and force, Macfarlane confronts the gross failure of our existing laws to protect rivers from harm… Such ideas are brought to life by the quality of the writing, the evocation of mood and place, the raw smells and energies that accompany Macfarlane, whether on a gentle walk into a Cambridge wood, or hurtling with mortal speed down a Canadian rapid

Financial Times

Impassioned and invigorating . . . Macfarlane is erudite and eclectic, and, though charismatic, doesn’t press his presence upon you. His books are adventurous, often involving truly remarkable companions; and at the sentence level no one could accuse him of painting by numbers . . .

Spectator

Is A River Alive? is fiercely intelligent, slightly self-deprecating and luminously written

The Scotsman

‘Engages imaginatively with important debates and makes a compelling case that understanding the "aliveness" of rivers should matter to us all

Times Literary Supplement

Our first-ever non-fiction top pick, this exquisitely written book will transport you to remarkable places and people . . . A riveting blend of cultural and natural history, part travelogue, part reportage, that’s full of wild, wise and gentle souls dedicated to preserving the rights of nature

Woman & Home, Book of the Month

Exquisitely written

Woman’s Weekly

Vital in every sense of the word: the culmination of years of work, campaigning and learning

Bookmunch