Is a River Alive?

Shortlisted for Blackwell's Book of the Year 2025
Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing 2025
Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year 2026
Shortlisted for the Sherborne Prize for Travel Writing 2026

From celebrated writer Robert Macfarlane comes this brilliant, perspective-shifting new book, which answers a resounding yes to the question of its title.

At its heart is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law.

"Is a River Alive?" takes the reader on an exploration of the past, present and futures of this ancient, urgent concept.

The book flows first to northern Ecuador, where a cloud-forest and its rivers are threatened by goldmining.

Then, to the wounded rivers, creeks and lagoons of southern India, where a desperate battle to save the lives of these waterbodies is under way.

And finally, to north-eastern Quebec, where a wild river—the Mutehekau or Magpie—is being defended from damming in a river-rights campaign.

At once Macfarlane's most personal and most political book to date, "Is a River Alive?" explores the idea that our fate flows with that of rivers, and always has.