Is a River Alive?

Hailed in the New York Times as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler,” Robert Macfarlane brings his luminous prose to a profound meditation on rivers, rights, and what it means to be alive. Is a River Alive? asks a question that feels both ancient and urgent: Should rivers be recognized as living beings, not just in our imaginations, but in law?

This extraordinary work of nature writing braids together three unforgettable journeys. Macfarlane takes you deep into Ecuador’s miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams, through India’s wounded creeks and lagoons scarred by pollution, and along Canada’s spectacular wild rivers threatened by dams. Woven through these travels is the intimate story of a fragile chalk stream flowing just a mile from the author’s home—a waterway whose life mirrors his own years and days.

What emerges is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration powered by Macfarlane’s signature dazzling prose and enriched by the voices of indigenous leaders, scientists, activists, and poets who understand what many of us have forgotten: that our fate flows with that of rivers, and always has.

Perfect for readers who loved Underland and The Old Ways, this is essential reading for anyone who cares about conservation, environmental justice, and the natural world. Whether you’re drawn to travel writing, ecology, or simply beautiful sentences that shimmer like water in sunlight, Is a River Alive? will open your heart and challenge how you see the living world around you.

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