Just finished this incredibly powerful, moving and thought provoking book. ‘The North Road’ By @robcowen.bsky.social The history, the geography, the memories, the personal stories, just brilliant! I’ve never read a book quite like it. I highly recommend! 📘📖 @stanfordstravel.bsky.social 📚

Just spent a glorious hour at the #Cambridge Literary Festival listening to @robcowen.bsky.social & @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social discuss Rob's new book The North Road. I do love a book that starts with a map & great to hear satellite images were part of the process. @josefaschbacher.esa.int #eochat

#farsleylitfest #leeds Join us for an evening of discovery with award-winning writer @robcowen.bsky.social as he takes us on an unforgettable exploration of Britain’s great highway, the A1. Be captivated by stories about his genre-defying book 'The North Road'. trumanbooks.co.uk/events

What an appropriate place to finish the last few chapters of @robcowen.bsky.social excellent book, The North Road. From #Cambrdge to the historic Netherbow Port & Calton Hill by the modern A1 in #Edinburgh. Routes, maps, journeys, & stories make us. @edfringe.bsky.social @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social

Thanks so much @tania55.bsky.social !! Great taste that @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social

Struggling to find your next read? Here’s a few for your list! 📚📖 Head to @stanfordstravel.bsky.social and seek them out 🤗 @robcowen.bsky.social @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social @shafikmeghji.bsky.social @guyshrubsole.bsky.social

Last week @robcowen.bsky.social delighted Friends of the Festival with a lively conversation on his latest book, The North Road. We also gave our Friends a sneak preview of this year's festival line up (they've promised to keep quiet 🤫). The rest of you will just have to wait until 14 August!

The North Road by @robcowen.bsky.social is a bargain 99p on Kindle today #affiliatelink #booksky amzn.to/46aYRyu

Hugely honoured to find out that #TheNorthRoad has been longlisted for the @wainwrightprize.bsky.social 😁😁❤️

Thank you! What a view from where to follow the road…

How the world might have been different if Nick Drake was a dog owner rather than a dope smoker.

We're starting to reach sold-out status on quite a few of our events for this year's programme... But these two are definitely sold out 👏 🌟 Rob Cowen - The North Road  🌟 Newark Town Centre Tree Walk

Irreplaceable habitats are on the line. This is the reality if an unamended Part 3 of the Bill passes. It must not.

What did we do to deserve this government? It promised change, and many people voted on that basis, in good faith. But the change is from bad to worse. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

"It's the sudden jolt of finding yourself at the margins where humans and nature step outside the neat categories we give them" 📖 Rob Cowen, Common Ground, Windmill Books, 2015 #booksky #nature #Yorkshire

Thanks so much Andrew. Me too!

The North Road playlist is up on Spotify. Close to 6 hours of the songs and music that accompanied the journey and shaped the writing. More than this, it echoes the unfolding chapters. A listen along for anyone reading the book. Perfect for a Bank Holiday. 😁 open.spotify.com/playlist/1RD...

Newly ordered from Blackwells, because they so nicely deliver to Canada with the postage built into the price (which stops me from wincing...) I did try my local indie bookstore first, but they don't have it even in their 'can be ordered' lists.

C’est bon, non?

Thought I couldn’t love Springsteen more.

An inspiring listen ahead of #OutAndAboutArchaeology @archaeologyuk.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

11:45am TODAY on @BBCRadio4 The North Road by Rob Cowen Ep 5 of 5, Achavanich The award-winning writer's journey along the Great North Road concludes with an archaeological and a familial discovery. Joseph Ayre reads. @robcowen.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

The end of the road. Flow Country. Today (11:45am) is the last episode of #TheNorthRoad on #radio4 as its #bookoftheweek. This final instalment comes from near the end of the book, and a post-Covid chapter called ‘Resurfacing’. #robcowen #thenorthroad #bookoftheweek #bbc #bbcradio4

11:45am TODAY on @BBCRadio4 The North Road by Rob Cowen Ep 4 of 5, Mine Doncaster's mining past takes up the next stop on the award-winning writer's journey as he makes his away along the Great North Road. Joseph Ayre reads. @robcowen.bsky.social

11:45am TODAY on @BBCRadio4 The North Road by Rob Cowen Ep 3 of 5, A Boxing Match Award-winning writer @robcowen.bsky.social reveals how a mighty clash between two boxers in the East Midlands shines a troubling light on 19th century England. Joseph Ayre reads.

Listening this morning first to Melissa Harrison welcoming back the swifts (5 years ago) then to the new @robcowen.bsky.social book on the BBC. Surges of memory of an enchanted, still-unbelievable summer evening on the shore of Ullswater in 2018… (1/?)

11:45am TODAY on @BBCRadio4 The North Road by Rob Cowen Ep 2 of 5, Beginnings Award-winning writer @robcowen.bsky.social discovers that the Great North Road's origins are hard to pin down. Meanwhile, he uncovers Smithfield's bloody history. Joseph Ayre reads

Strong recommendation for this week’s R4 Book of the Week. Great timing for me, saw @robcowen.bsky.social’s post at 11.44 just as I pulled off the B733 in Galloway at the Torhouse Stone Circle… chapter one is The Dig. Superb writing.

11:45am TODAY on @BBCRadio4 The North Road by Rob Cowen Ep 1 of 5, The Dig @robcowen.bsky.social is an award-writing writer and, in his new book, an archaeological dig alongside a busy highway inspires him to take a journey through place & time. Joseph Ayre reads

Hello good folk! Today at 11:45am #TheNorthRoad begins its stint as #bookoftheweek on BBC Radio 4. Tune in to episode 1: The Dig.

Because this book will not leave me alone, I've been compelled to leave something about The North Road, Rob Cowen's magnificent book about ancient highway, family tree enigma, political pilgrimage, memory, time & much more. Absolutely love it @robcowen.bsky.social www.amazon.co.uk/North-Road-e...

This week non-fiction triumphed with new titles from renowned writers @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social, @robcowen.bsky.social and @lamornaash.bsky.social 👇 #BookTok

“Fungi will reach up their white ghost-fingers, draw the fishbones down and decompose them – then share the goodness with the roots of the trees. By means of the river, the ocean will feed the forest.” A stunning and superb master piece of a book, debuting in @theguardian.com today.

Was a truly special hour for us too. Thanks Geoff.

A ‘beautifully written book, often giving the purely visual pleasure of a road movie’. — Andrew Martin in The Observer on @robcowen.bsky.social’s ‘The North Road.’ theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/20/the-north-road-by-rob-cowen-review-the-poetry-and-pain-of-britains-backbone

Following in the footsteps of Romans (and ghosts)… this is a great read from @robcowen.bsky.social, author of The North Road, in @theguardian.com #travel featuring Burghley House and #Stamford Lincolnshire - bit.ly/3RRaOAL

The North Road by Rob Cowen review – the poetry and pain of Britain’s backbone A beautifully written study of our longest numbered route, the A1, is full of rich asides and haunting explorations, conjuring the visual pleasure of a road movie www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

Gorgeous!

R4's Soul Music episode on 'May You Never' is now available to listen via BBC Sounds. As ever, it includes moving testimony on the way songs connect to real lives. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Thanks SO MUCH Nic!

This–– @robcowen.bsky.social’s The North Road––is out today. It's magnificent: one of the best books you'll read this year. A polyphonic walking-up of the ghosts & lives of the Great North Road; a bravura act of imagining in which RC seems to slip supernaturally between times & minds. So, so good.

A wonderful author. Get yourself a copy of this. #TheNorthRoad

Honestly, you’ll want to read this. It’s extraordinary & I loved it. Utterly beguiling, it’s writing as a road, as tributaries of some manmade river - created & recreated by ourselves, our ghosts, doubles & echoes. Poetic, poignant & lyrically political. Congratulations @robcowen.bsky.social

Thanks so much to the master for this. I have indeed ear-wormed him for years about sections and stories. Cheers @benjaminmyers76.bsky.social

I read this book recently; indeed, while on the road north. It’s astonishing. Loved it. Go buy (in your local bookshop!) #TheNorthRoad #naturewriting

Can't wait to read this as a long-term resident beside the North Road - both north and south. #naturewriting

It runs and flies today. Officially. #TheNorthRoad is out there! 10 years of researching, walking, travelling and writing. A lifetime lived; 7,000 years of strata and stories. All braided together. A book about identity, family. Go out and get it at your local bookshop. I’d be ever so grateful.

My friends. Here are 2 more of my ‘birthday books’ (😉) I commend to you with unbridled enthusiasm without having read a page. From 2 authors whose work I prize whenever it appears: @robcowen.bsky.social & Emily Hauser. Both possess the gift of making the familiar new—& the new archaic

Great to see spine-stiffening example of @harvard.edu; refusal to bow to Trump's demands for staggering federal interference. Others following suit. Assault on universities = * assault on public purpose of education * on freedom of thought * on life-saving research www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

This is wonderful news! I read an advance copy of @robcowen.bsky.social's The North Road and couldn't put it down. I can't wait to hear it as book of the week. Great choice.