Mountains of the Mind - (Landscapes) by Robert MacFarlane (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of Is a River Alive? and Underland, a soaring blend of cultural history, meditation, and memoir about the mysteries of the world's highest places and our unending quest for the summit

"Wonderfully illuminating." --Los Angeles Times - "Fascinating." --The New York Times Book Review

For those who love mountains, their wonder is beyond dispute. But for many, their allure is beyond reason; their extraordinary beauty offset by the immense risks involved in climbing them. In this groundbreaking and now classic work, Robert Macfarlane answers the enduring 'why' of mountaineering. He explores how mountains have come to grip the Western imagination and hold so many of us spellbound, drawing us up into the high places--sometimes at the cost of our lives.

Braiding history, geology, human stories, and glittering accounts of his own journeys in high, wild landscapes from the Rockies to the Himalayas, Macfarlane unfurls the mysteries and passions of mountaineering's imaginative evolution. His account begins in the mid-1700s, when a fascination for mountains was sparked by the work of both poets and scientists in Europe. It ends with a vivid re-creation of George Mallory's three, ill-fated expeditions in the 1920s, as Mallory sought to be the first to summit Mt. Everest.

Review Quotes

"Wonderfully illuminating. . . . An exhilarating blend of scholarship and adventure, displaying dazzling erudition, acute powers of analysis, a finely honed sense of cultural history and a passionate sense of the author's engagement with his subject." --Los Angeles Times

"Fascinating stuff. . . a clever premise. . . . Goes back three centuries, showing how a few brainy opinion makers created the outdoor image." --The New York Times Book Review

"A convincing book of historical evidence alongside his own oxygen-deprived experiences in an attempt to answer the age old question, 'Why climb the mountain?' "--San Francisco Chronicle

"Early mountaineers were lost for words to describe the splendor of the mountains, but Robert Macfarlane is not; in particular, he has a gift for arresting similes." --The Times Literary Supplement

"Of all the books published to mark the 50th anniversary of climbing Mount Everest Robert Macfarlane's Mountains of the Mind stands out as by far one of the most intelligent and interesting. . . in a style that shows he can be as poetic as he is plucky."--The Economist

"At once a fascinating work of history and a beautifully written meditation on how memory, imagination, and the landscape of mountains are joined together in our minds and under our feet." --Forbes

"A compelling meditation. . . Macfarlane is. . . the perfect mountain guide through blue crevasse fields, ice walls, prayer flags, Sherpas and Shangri Las. He's been up there, and come back down through the foothills to offer us his thoughtful and gracious elegy, telling us eloquently the secret of it all, which is that no one can ever truly conquer a mountain."--Benedict Allen, author of The Faber Book of Exploration

"Macfarlane, a mountain lover and climber, has a visceral appreciation of mountains. . . . He is an engaging writer, his commentary, always crisp and relevant, leavened by personal experience beautifully related."-The Observer (UK)

"Macfarlane writes with tremendous maturity, elegance and control. . . . A powerful debut, a remarkable blend of passion and scholarship." --Evening Standard (UK)

"Part history, part personal observation, this is a fascinating study of our (sometimes fatal) obsession with height. A brilliant book, beautifully written." --Fergus Fleming, author of Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole

"A new kind of exploration writing, perhaps even the birth of a new genre, which doesn't just defy classification-it demands a whole new category of its own."--The Telegraph (UK)

"There are many books on climbing and climbers, and this is one of the best and most unusual I have read."--The Times (UK)

"An imaginative, original essay in cultural history-a book that evokes as well as investigates the fear and wonder of high places." --William Fiennes, author of The Snow Geese

"A crisp historical study of the sensations and emotions people have brought to (and taken from) mountains. . . . Macfarlane intelligently probes the push/pull of the peaks. . . . Sharp and enticing." --Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Robert Macfarlane is internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people, and place. His bestselling books include Is a River Alive?, Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, The Wild Places, and Mountains of the Mind; they have been translated into more than thirty languages, won many prizes around the world and been widely adapted for film, music, theatre, radio, and dance. He has also written operas, plays, and films including River and Mountain, both narrated by Willem Dafoe. He has collaborated with artists including Olafur Eliasson and Stanley Donwood, and with the artist Jackie Morris he co-created the internationally bestselling books of nature-poetry and art, The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. In 2017, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the E. M. Forster Prize for Literature. Macfarlane lives in England, where he is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.