LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING 2025

BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK

'A dazzlingly inventive work of literature' Robert Macfarlane
'A wonderful achievement' Kathleen Jamie, New Statesman
'Beautifully written' Observer
'A wonderful, epic braiding of history, geography and memoir' James Rebanks

At the heart of this book is a highway. The A1; The Great North Road. A 400-mile multiplicity of ancient trackway, Roman road, pilgrim path, coach route and motorway that has run like a backbone through Britain for the last 2,000 years.

In this genre-defying and profoundly personal book, Cowen follows this ghost road from beginning to end on a journey through history, place, people and time. Weaving his own histories and memories with the layered landscapes he moves through, this is the story of an age, of coming to terms with time past and time passing, and the roads that lead us to where we find ourselves.

Written in kaleidoscopic prose, The North Road is an unforgettable exploration of Britain’s great highway.

'Astonishing... One to relish and revisit'
Telegraph

'Remarkable'
Financial Times

'Sweeping, sensitive and enduring'
Tristan Gooley

'Stunning and utterly unique'
Benjamin Myers

'A dazzling, dogged, layered account of one road’s passage through place, time and an ordinary family’s history'
Melissa Harrison

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. * GUARDIAN *
Richly historical . . . The North Road is a wonderful achievement . . . Cowen has perhaps found his country's elusive sense of identity. It resides not in landscape or football or a National Trust garden, but in an ever-changing, ever-active, thundering dual carriageway. It begins in uncertainty and ends in a different nation. Brilliantly, The North Road is everything. It is “England and nowhere”. * NEW STATESMAN *
'This is an astonishing book in its scope and vitality. It’s one to relish and revisit – not least because at its heart is an exuberant love song to both the living and the dead.' * The Telegraph *
‘richly historical … The North Road is a wonderful achievement …. Cowen has perhaps found his country's elusive sense of identity. It resides not in landscape or football or a National Trust garden, but in an ever-changing, ever-active, thundering dual carriageway. It begins in uncertainty and ends in a different nation. Brilliantly, The North Road is everything. It is “England and nowhere”.’ * Kathleen Jamie, New Statesman *
'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.' * Observer *
‘Haunted and haunting: Cowen tracks the London-Edinburgh highway in a mesmerising exploration of time, place, memory and identity. A dazzlingly inventive work of literature.’ * Robert Macfarlane *
‘When I began this book, I wondered if it would be for me. I didn’t think I was interested in roads. But The North Road is a wonderful, epic braiding of history, geography and personal memoir. It made me think deeply about who we are, and where we came from; our country in this moment in time, and how we can learn from our past. I couldn’t put it down.' * James Rebanks *
'A dazzling, dogged, layered account of one road’s passage through place, time and an ordinary family’s history, The North Road truly is a trip.' * Melissa Harrison *
'I don’t know how he does it, but in combining deep history, travel, memoir, fiction and so much more besides, Rob Cowen has created something stunning and utterly unique. The North Road sits in a genre of one. He’s a wandering wizard, a magician whose brilliance lies not in trickery, but in real talent and a wild, untamed imagination that’s capable of transcending time.' * Benjamin Myers *
‘Epic, magisterial, hard-won, properly-wrought - much like the Great North Road itself. Truly, a tour de force...you may read another book in 2025, you will not read a better one.’ * John Lewis-Stempel *

Rob Cowen is an award-winning writer and author, hailed as one of the UK’s most original voices on nature, place and people. His first book, Skimming Stones, won the Roger Deakin Award from the Society of Authors. His second book, Common Ground (PRH; 2015) was shortlisted for the Portico, Richard Jefferies Society and Wainwright Prizes and voted one of the nation’s favourite nature books of all time in a BBC poll. His follow-up, The Heeding (E&T; 2021), was the best-selling debut book of poetry in 2021. Rob has contributed to the New York Times, the Guardian and the Independent and written radio programmes for the BBC. He lives in North Yorkshire.