Robert Macfarlane Books in Order
Robert Macfarlane has written 21 books, published between 2000 and 2026. The first book is Magdalen Poets (2000) and the newest is The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss (2026). Publication order is the reading order below.
- Books
- 21
- Published
- 2000–2026
- Pages on record
- 2,300 in 11 of 21 books
- Reading time
- 38–58 hours
Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 2,300 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute, covering the 11 of 21 titles with a page count on record.
Robert Macfarlane, born in 1976, is a British non-fiction writer and a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Landscape, nature, place, people and language are his subjects, across The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot (2012), Landmarks (2015), The Lost Words (2017), Underland (2019) and Is a River Alive? (2025). His 21 catalogued titles start with Magdalen Poets (2000) and reach The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss (2026), taking in Mountains of the Mind (2003), Original Copy (2007), The Wild Places (2007), Holloway (2012) and Silt (2013). Macfarlane collaborates often with musicians, composers and artists. The American Academy of Arts and Letters gave him the E. M. Forster Award for Literature in 2017, and he was named an outside contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022 and 2024.
How many Robert Macfarlane books are there?
Robert Macfarlane has 21 books, released between 2000 and 2026. 3 of them belong to the Landscapes series.
Robert Macfarlane Books in Publication Order
The table lists all 21 Robert Macfarlane books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.
- 1Magdalen Poets2000 · 222 pages · confirmed 1/420002221/4
- 22003–1/4
- 3The New Dusseldorf School of Painting2003 · 64 pages · confirmed 1/42003641/4
- 4Original Copy: Plagiarism and Originality in Nineteenth-Century Literature2007 · confirmed 1/42007–1/4
- 520073401/4
- 6Holloway2012 · 48 pages · confirmed 1/42012481/4
- 72012–1/4
- 8Silt2013 · confirmed 1/42013–1/4
- 9Landmarks2015 · confirmed 1/42015–1/4
- 10Stuart Haygarth: Strand2016 · 128 pages · confirmed 1/420161281/4
- 11The Lost Words2017 · 130 pages · confirmed 1/420171301/4
- 13Ness2019 · 72 pages · confirmed 1/42019721/4
- 14Underland: A Deep Time Journey2019 · 496 pages · confirmed 1/420194961/4
- 15Ghostways: Two Journeys in Unquiet Places2020 · 176 pages · confirmed 1/420201761/4
- 16The Lost Spells2020 · 240 pages · confirmed 1/420202401/4
- 17Kurt Jackson - Recent Work2021 · confirmed 1/42021–1/4
- 18From Here to the Horizon: Photographs in Honor of Barry Lopez2023 · confirmed 1/42023–1/4
- 19The World to Come2024 · confirmed 1/42024–1/4
- 20Is a River Alive?2025 · 384 pages · confirmed 1/420253841/4
- 21The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss2026 · confirmed 1/42026–1/4
Robert Macfarlane books grouped by series
Each title below is a row in the publication-order table above. None of these groups has a reading-order page of its own on this site.
Landscapes in order
3 booksStandalone books
18 books18 Robert Macfarlane titles here are not listed as part of any series.
Do you have to read Robert Macfarlane books in order?
You only need to read Robert Macfarlane books in order within the Landscapes series, which holds 3 of the 21 Robert Macfarlane books listed here. The numbered table above gives every book in publication order.
Where to start with Robert Macfarlane
Start with Magdalen Poets (2000), the earliest published title.
What is the newest Robert Macfarlane book?
The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss (2026) is the newest Robert Macfarlane book released so far.
Is there a new Robert Macfarlane book coming?
No next Robert Macfarlane book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.
Awards Robert Macfarlane has won
Wikidata records 1 award for Robert Macfarlane. Each row states whether the title won or was shortlisted, and the year the award was given.
- Guardian First Book Award2003Won
Robert Macfarlane at a glance
- Still publishing
- Robert Macfarlane published a book as recently as 2026.
- Release pace
- Robert Macfarlane books have appeared about one a year on average.
- Length
- 2,300 pages across the 11 of 21 books with a recorded length, a median of 176 pages each.
- Busiest decade
- Most Robert Macfarlane books, 9 of 21, were published in the 2010s.
What the Robert Macfarlane books are about
11 of the 21 Robert Macfarlane books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: nature is tagged on 3 of 11. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.