Silt

by Robert Macfarlane

In Silt, bestselling travel writer Robert Macfarlane walks the Broomway, the deadliest path in Britain.In one of the most striking chapters of his brilliant 2012 book The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane walks the Essex offshore path which has claimed the lives of more than sixty people over the centuries. His companion on this atmospheric and potentially perilous journey is his old friend and photographer, David Quentin.In this special e-book edition, the Broomway section of The Old Ways appears alongside a run of twenty-two photographs taken that day by David, which form a haunting counterpoint to the text itself. In a newly written afterword, David reflects on the walk, on Robert Macfarlane's writing and on the fascinating legal terrain which paths like this one traverse even as they cross the land itself.Praise for The Old 'Macfarlane has shown how utterly beautiful a brilliantly written travel book can still be. As perfect as his now classic The Wild Places. Maybe it is even better than that' William Dalrymple, Observer'A lovely book, a poetic investigation into what it is to follow a path, on land and at sea, in the footsteps of both our ancient predecessors and such writers as Edward Macfarlane is reviving an entire body of nature writing here' David Sexton, Evening Standard'Beautifully written, moving, thrilling. It reminded me of how much stranger and richer the world is... at walking speed' Philip Pullman, Guardian 'A magnificent meditation on walking and writing. An astonishingly haunted book' Adam Nicolson, Daily Telegraph'The Old Ways sets the imagination tingling . . . it is like reading a prose Odyssey sprinkled with imagist poems' John Carey, Sunday TimesRobert Macfarlane is the author of the award-winning Mountains of the Mind; The Wild Places; The Old Ways, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction; and Landmarks, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.David Quentin is a barrister specialising in tax law. He also takes photographs, teaches Cambridge undergraduates about versification and plays the bass guitar in London-based krautgoth noisegaze outfit The Murder Act.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Nature

59 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 20, 2013

About the author

Robert Macfarlane is a British nature writer and literary critic.

Educated at Nottingham High School, Pembroke College, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford, he is currently a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and teaches in the Faculty of English at Cambridge.

Robert Macfarlane is the author of prize-winning and bestselling books about landscape, nature, people and place, including Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination (2003), The Wild Places (2007), The Old Ways (2012), Holloway (2013, with Stanley Donwood and Dan Richards), Landmarks (2015), The Lost Words: A Spell Book (with the artist Jackie Morris, 2017) and Underland: A Deep Time Journey (2019). His work has been translated into many languages, won prizes around the world, and his books have been widely adapted for film, television, stage and radio. He has collaborated with artists, film-makers, actors, photographers and musicians, including Hauschka, Willem Dafoe, Karine Polwart and Stanley Donwood. In 2017 he was awarded the EM Forster Prize for Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad Robert Macfarlane walked this because I am never ever going to do the Broomway walk!

This walk is the second most dangerous one in the UK (Morecambe Bay is the most dangerous). Whilst this one has a fixed path and Morecambe Bay does not, it is still subject to the tides. Over a hundred people have lost their lives attempting this crossing over the years and there are some grisly tales in this book of some of those.

It is a bleak and featureless environment where you can easily lose all sense of direction, become disorientated, and end up walking out to sea and either drowning or being sucked into the mud which lies close below the surface of the sand.

Reading this reminded me quite a lot of the descriptions in Susan Hill's The Woman in Black of the salt marshes and tidal roads subject to flooding and risk of death.

[Jacqueline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so glad that I chose to read 'Silt' today. What a beautiful, perfectly formed, little book. Although I love Robert Macfarlane, I am slightly ashamed to say that I have never read one of his books. I have no idea why! But, if his writing is always this good, which of course it is, then I will go into an official and long lasting swoon now. 'Silt' is wonderfully evocative, filled with quirky anecdotes & people, & enchanting in every way. I still feel as though I am wandering the oyster catcher haunted silver-sheened mud flats. Haunting and utterly stunning. And I loved David Quentin's bourgeois (ha!) photos and beautifully written Afterward. A pleasure to read.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

As ever Robert MacFarlane writes beautifully and interestingly, and as always evokes in me a strong feeling of envy, both of his literary ability (which is totally without the accompaniment of elitism and poshness), but also that he can do these wonderful things. Short but wonderful!

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

The lyrical account & writerly observations - with fascinating historical background - of the authors traverse over the Broomway at low tide between Wakering Stairs & Foulness on the Essex coast accompanied by his friend David Quentin whose photographs & afterword are included.
"If the Broomway hadn't existed, Wilkie Collins might have had to invent it."

[Jude Brigley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully poetic and thoroughly gripping.nI really enjoyed it.

[connie]

i skim read this for uni and it wasn't great. super dull and overly descriptive, twas just boring