Is a River Alive?

"A fundamentally hopeful book about an overwhelming ecological catastrophe, answering the titular question with a resounding 'yes.' It is also a call to arms, introducing the relatively young Rights of Nature movement to a mass audience."

"Engages imaginatively with important debates and makes a compelling case that understanding the 'aliveness' of rivers should matter to us all."

"Perhaps the most moving and beautiful part of his book comes in the interludes between visits to faraway rivers in which Macfarlane tells the history of a small spring near his home ..."

"Macfarlane introduces us not only to the rivers in these singular parts of the world but also to the environmentalists trying to save them, as well as the novel philosophical program that unites these efforts ..."

"Macfarlane skillfully braids his immersive travel writing with illuminating historical background, all told in lithe prose."

"While Is a River Alive?"

"The result is a ravishing and enlightening inquiry shaped by hydropoetics and a deeply considered commitment to rejuvenating, cherishing, and protecting rivers and all of nature."

"Macfarlane's writing is as beautiful as the rivers and the hope he's describing."

"Macfarlane's evangelical writing does more to convince me that rivers are alive than all the legal, biological and thermodynamic arguments of the act combined."