The Old Ways: A Journey On Foot - Robert Macfarlane The 4 stars are for what this book ought to have been rather than what it was. Chapter 8 ('Gneiss') was irrelevant and somewhat offensive. 'Abroad', while interesting, belonged in a different book. I read it last. The author's voice is at its most authentic and most lacking in artifice in the chapters on southern England. Parts of the rest seemed to strive for effect without necessarily achieving it.Or perhaps it's just that I want more Roger Deakin, can't have it, and am in enough of a temper to sulk about it.