Is A River Alive?

Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Hailed by the New York Times as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler,” Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage and natural history.

Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada―imperiled respectively by mining, pollution and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, a stream who flows through his own years and days.

Powered by dazzling prose and lit throughout by other minds and voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers―and always has. Named a Best Book of 2025 by The New Yorker, Economist, Guardian, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, etc. One of TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2025, Smithsonian Magazine's 10 Best Science Books of 2025 and a Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction for 2025. Hardcover and 374 pages.