I really enjoyed this book! I’ve always been interested in the Bronte sisters books, but not known an awful lot about them. As a fan of walking too, I found this book really interesting and easy to listen to. It certainly made me want to visit some of the locations visited, and to do more research into the sisters lives. It was also interesting finding out about each of the Bronte stones, and the meetings and conversations with the people related to these.

This book provides a fantastically interesting and detailed history of the Bronte's, including the less well known Bramwell, who is finally given a place in the spotlight alongside his infinitely more famous sisters. The elder Bronte sisters, cruelly stolen away by tuberculosis (or the mystified and often romanticised "consumption", are also given a chance to tell their narrative.

The description of the walk around the different Bronte stones is also very enjoyable. Although of course this does not translate as well into the audiobook format, hearing about the walks is still very engaging, owing largely to the author's clear passion for the subject.

What is truly unique about this book is the vast dichotomy that is presented, with the beautiful poetry, stories and romantic aspects of the Bronte's lives, the sumptuous descriptions of the beautiful walks, offset by the harsh and sometimes even vulgar invasions of the modern world and reality imposed upon the more idealised world (from rude farmers to dead animals in detail, this book certainly does not shy away from any detail!)

This was absolute perfection and the perfect book or audiobook for Bronte fans. The audiobook is narrated by the author and his narration is just perfect and really adds to the book itself. Its a lovely mix of nature/walking book and Bronte biography. I particularly liked the authors story of his own background and how he discovered reading in early adulthood - reading library books on his long bus journey to a factory job - having been denied access to literature at school due to being in a lower ability class. It just shows the importance of libraries in encouraging a love of books and reading especially in those who have been ignored or failed elsewhere.

A lovely book for any Bronte enthusiast and also imperative for planning a trip to Bronte country!

Walking The Invisible by Michael Stewart
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Synopsis
Walking the Invisible is a trek through the Brontes’ landscapes as author Michael Stewart tries to get closer to the family. Walking the historical paths they trod whilst writing their famous works, he brings the reader closer to Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey and more. From Liverpool to Scarborough, across wild, windy and unforgiving scenery, he discovers echoes of the siblings’ novels. With the help of an unlikely cast of Yorkshire’s inhabitants, Michael finds himself falling further into their lives and writings than he could ever have imagined
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This book is a combination of being a walking diary and a piece of historical work. The author describes the environment he sees whilst comparing it the one of the 19th century which the Brontes trekked. He highlights the political and social issues of the early Victorian period to explore more of what made the Brontes who they were. These details were fascinating and also gives context to when the family were writing
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Stewart delves into the books and poems of the family to explore the landscape, sharing likely sites that influenced their works. The author’s passion for their publications shines through, as does the amount of research he has done into the lives of the Brontes. Focusing not just on the famous sisters, but on their father, Patrick and brother, Branwell, Stewart takes the reader through their history and lives. He discusses the houses they lived in, the people they knew and the tragedies the family experienced. He shares theories over their personal lives, and it was so interesting to learn more about who they were away from their famous novels and characters
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I loved hearing about where their influences came from particularly through someone so passionate about them. The details he impresses on the reader of the landscape both he and the Brontes experienced make you want to put on your walking shoes and follow in their footsteps. And if you are a fan of the famous Bronte siblings, this is a book for you
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Thank you @netgalley @hqstories and Harper Collins UK Audio for this audiobook.

This book is an absolute gem.
Michael Stewart takes you through the history of the Brontes by walking in the areas where they lived.
It is such a delight to listen to in an audiobook and you almost feel like you are there with him and his dog Wolfie.
Michael meets a collection of characters on his tales, all with varying degrees of knowledge of the area and the Brontes.
This book is also rich on historical details of the places that he visits.
Quite clearly shows Michael Stewarts love of the Brontes and I loved every minute of it.
An ideal audiobook for a summers day.
Thanks you to the author, publisher and NetGalley in allowing me to read in return for a review.

This is such a beautiful book. So may of us are fascinated by the Brontes and so this book was a must read for me. Michael takes us on a beautiful descriptive walk around the Brontes world. It is so amazing how he whisks you off to another time and place with his beauty descriptions. I listened to this book as an audio and I think it made the whole experience even more thrilling as Michael reads in a mesmerising way.

I was not sure what to expect from this book and firstly loved the narration having been born in Manchester
I found the descriptions of the landscapes and mixed with the history and personal stories that the author has of places and I liked how there was so much information of the lesser known Bronte,s such as Anne and Branwell Brontë

The authors love of the books by the fiction of the Brontë family comes out in the reading of the book and the Kate Bush hit song Wuthering Heights is even explored and parts of that hit that I had not thought about before

Overall I loved this genital book and if you like the Brontë novels and want to walk in their footsteps this is the book for you where you can walk the same earth and same mud with Inky clouds

Audio ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review





Audio review: Great choice of narrator however the audio in this ARC is far too quiet! It was almost impossible to listen while driving, even with the volume on both my phone and the car radio maxed out. It wasn't much better with headphones. I'm assuming that the audio will be cleaned up before release but it ruined an other wise great audio book.





The book itself; I haven't got around to reading 'Ill Will', Stewart's fictional account of Heathcliff's life, but I'll bump it up the tbr based on this book. Walking the Invisible is a book about walking (strangely enough), literature and how authors are shaped by the landscapes they grow up in. Stewart - a long time Bronte devotee - was involved with the Bronte stones project - the creation of a series of trails, marked by stones for each of the Bronte family and bearing commemorative poems by acclaimed modern poets. This book follows these walks, reflecting on both the landscape and the inspiration for the famous 19th C novels and poems. Although that's too simplistic a description. What Stewart excels at doing throughout the book is creating an intense personal connection with each of the siblings and with Patrick Bronte himself. He delves into the texts of the novels and poems, working through the connections he can see between the literature and the land. To give this true tensile, intellectual strength, he considers the historical time period and the mores and morals of that time. Finally, he is very open about his own relationship with this gifted family - now 140 yrs or so dead.



As an enthusiastic reader of all things Bronte and an amateur Bronte scholar myself, I found myself agreeing with many of his conclusions and agreeably disagreeing with others. His suggestion that Earnshaw may have been headed to Liverpool to purchase a slave and that those might have been Heathcliff's origins, for example, just does not work for me in the light of the text. (For one thing if Earnshaw could afford a slave, why wasn't he riding to Liverpool on a horse instead of walking? Why would he favour a slave over his own children or give the child his dead son's name? And references to Heathcliff being dark skinned or 'black' were far more likely to have been in reference to Romany heritage and bad disposition. The mention of gibberish could easily have been a reference to Romany, Irish or even Welsh. Heathcliff's later rise to fortune is increasingly unlikely if he couldn't at least pass for white, given the time period. Stewart also ignores the fact that Wuthering Heights arose out of Emily Bronte's Gondol stories (Gondol was the name of the imaginary world she and Anne wrote about together) and may well have been set there and not in Yorkshire at all! So while Earnshaw may have been in Liverpool on insalubrious business, that one just doesn't hold water.



Stewart is also too inclined to give Branwell the benefit of the doubt when it comes to Lydia Robinson, the married woman he allegedly had an affair with. Let's be clear here, there is no conclusive evidence that the affair ever took place. Branwell was a highly strung individual, already leaning on opiates (probably to treat an undiagnosed form of epilepsy and chronic migraines). He was also a fantasist, a trait he shared with Charlotte. Interesting to note here that Charlotte and Branwell were close playmates as children, and devised the kingdom of Angria, in the same way that Emily and Anne were close confidantes. It's interesting to me that Charlotte and Branwell were both over come with unrequited passion for married individuals. Whereas Emily and Anne both share a sense of proportion their older siblings lacked when it came to matters of the heart. Basically, Branwell always had difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction. We only have his word that the affair eve happened. Lydia Robinson and her husband and everyone connected with them denied it. Anne said her brother's behaviour had been inappropriate but there is no surviving account as to what that entailed, nor does she seem to have held a grudge against Mrs Robinson. The letter to Lydia Robinson's solicitor which is so often held up as evidence, could as easily mean that she had been in the unfortunate position of having to report Branwell's increasingly inappropriate attentions to her and was thoroughly embarrassed by the entire situation, as you would expect for a well off, married woman in her 40s in Victorian England. Branwell might have been in love with Lydia but there is no evidence that she so much as flirted with him. To me the situation reads that it was entirely one sided with Branwell - most likely a TLE sufferer - unable to parse fantasy from reality. Love did not cause his decline, obsession and the desire to be in love worked upon an already frail constitution, mental ill health and eventual addiction. I have a lot of sympathy for Branwell - especially if he was a TLE sufferer, since I am likewise - but his choices were bad, he was consistently immature and egocentric. He may well have had far more aptitude than any of his sisters, he was certainly given far more in the way of opportunities. Ultimately he 'made a bad use of both advantages'. People want to believe the illicit love story and affair because it's the soap opera option. It was 'all in Branwell's head' just isn't as interesting even if it is true.



However, despite these disagreements, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I felt Stewart got very close to Emily and Anne's characters (could've spent a bit more time on Anne tbh - really interesting person). I liked his take on Mr Rochester as a character, on Jane and Rochester's love being something that transcended societal bounds and set them as equals. It's fashionable to paint Rochester as an abusive partner or a creepy old man and honestly he was neither; sometimes your perfect match doesn't come conveniently packaged in the correct social strata, age bracket or form. That was the point. I did enjoy his consideration of whether or not Charlotte wasn't as radical as her sisters but in a different way. I hadn't considered it in quite this manner before and I found I agree.



I could go on but I'll leave it there, having really enjoyed this intelligently written and introspective book, that was part historical travelogue, part autobiography, part nature meditation. Excellent.