Best ever - Rated 
I think this book is the most enjoyable I have read in my 89 years. Irs word pictures and linked thoughts are superb.
rootless - Rated 
This collection of essays is not in the same league as the wonderful 'Mountains of the Mind'. The writing is often sharp and lyrical, and Macfarlane frequently makes unexpected connections with ideas and writing that cause the reader to think in new ways.
However, there is a lingering sense of 'urban tourist' to my mind. Ironically, for a book which tries to examine place and belonging, there is a strange rootlesness that tends to look at the world in an almost colonial way. This is most obvious in the sections which deal with Scotland, Ireland or Wales, all countries with combine a strong sense of 'place with indigenous literature and language. Macfarlane never really seems to get to grips with this, and seems to see these countries as variations of a type of 'Englishness' that are seen through the prism of the English literary canon. He makes little acknowledgement of the link between landscape and landscape (Gaelic (Scots and Irish) and Welsh) and the fact that there is a long cultural tradition that predates and has a very different worldview from that of the Romantic poets who 'discovered' and idealised wild landscape.
In summary, this is an interesting but flawed collection of essays.
A real treasure - Rated
I cannot speak highly enough of this book, which tells the story of a fascinating series of journeys to wild locations around the British Isles.
It is written with obvious love for those places - the author's experience on the summit of Ben Hope being a single possible exception. The writing is superb - words are chosen and sentences are crafted in much the same way Macfarlane selects fascinating pebbles or birds' feathers from a shoreline and proudly displays them back at home.
The book is also very moving. It recounts tragic episodes from history in the Highland clearances and the Irish famine. But Macfarlane also writes about fellow author and environmentalist Roger Deakin - first of their experiences of joyfully exploring the wild places together, then of Deakin's untimely death from a brain tumour. Macfarlane's grief is palpable.
But this is, above all, an uplifting book and a reassuring one. Macfarlane comes to the conclusion that the wild places are not only in the extremities of Scotland, Ireland etc, but can also be found where we live.
For me, this is one of those books I will lovingly treasure and give pride of place on my own mantelpiece alongside the interesting shell and the fascinating pebble.
makes you want to get out there... - Rated
A book that celebrates all that is so utterly wonderful about being on top of a hill when the wind gets up and the rain comes down. This young Cambridge don has taken an idea and seen it through with admirable commitment. He really does reach some pretty faraway spots and sleeps out in them! In extreme weather... Brilliant! We know that our ancestors or ascetic monks have done it, but it's another thing in the modern age to sleep out on a mountain without a tent in midwinter. He writes with flair and feeling - eager to capture why we all love to walk along the shore, up the peak, along the track. He is guilty of overwriting at times and he does get a little morbid regarding his friend (of four years) roger deakin. He doesnt quite have the natural humanity of deakin - read 'waterlog' for a real masterpiece. But that kind of wisdom comes with age. And here Macfarlane has left us with a book to inspire and jolt us into adventure. hear hear... am already planning my trip
Inspirational - Rated 
Ideal reading for anyone who feels it's been too long since they heard birds singing or smelt anything other than exhaust fumes for months. Macfarlane's personal discovery that 'wild' exists all around us and at many different scales is uplifting especially for those of us unable to get to the mountains and wilder coastlines.
Docked one star for referring to the Yorkshire Dales as the North York Moors. Pedantic, I know, but one wouldn't refer to Dartmoor as Exmoor or the Cotswolds as the South Downs.
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