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Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca…
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Wanderlust: A History of Walking (original 2000; edition 2002)

by Rebecca Solnit (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,5693711,276 (3.83)52
Sort of a history/sociological look at the simpliest of acts that most take for granted(unless you're one of those who will spend 5min searching for that spot closest to the door). A very enjoyable read. Would go hand-in-hand with Thich Nhat Hanh's "Long Road Turns To Joy: A Guide To Walking Meditation". Read this several years ago (2004). ( )
  feralcatbob | Dec 22, 2020 |
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TFW you pull a book off your shelf and realize you didn't actually finish it. There's a lot here to think about and respond to, hopeful and depressing, I just had to get through the early sections that I care about so much less. Full of notes nevertheless. ( )
  Kiramke | Nov 28, 2023 |
A great treatise on a rather mundane subject, walking. We do it every day and of course take it for granted. Solnit takes us along at three miles an hour for a journey into bits of history associated with this subject. ( )
  BBrookes | Nov 15, 2023 |
I felt my heart swell with each step taken through its pages. This captivating book delves deep into the history of our most basic means of transportation, exploring its evolution through time, space, and culture. With each turn of the page, I was transported to new and exotic lands, and felt the rhythmic pulse of walking in my very soul. The author's poetic prose and insightful observations drew me in, and I was lost in a world where every step held infinite possibility. This book is a true love letter to the art of walking, and I am forever smitten. ( )
  paarth7 | May 6, 2023 |
I became a Rebecca Solnit fan with this book. ( )
  mykl-s | Mar 2, 2023 |
A terrific exploration of both the history of walking and how it affects our psychic as well as physical lives. I have already added several books she references to my to-read list. ( )
  grandpahobo | Mar 4, 2022 |
In the first place, this is not a book that is a history of walking. She does cover the fascination of walking, the links between mind and body while walking. Additionally, she speaks about how our relationship with walking has changed in the urban sphere.

Yet, this is not a history of walking. First, she does not cover anything of the traditions of walking in Africa, Asia, and Australasia, for instance. Second, she focussed excessively on Western authors and stuff they have written.

For the most part, the book is an exercise in tedium. ( )
  RajivC | Dec 11, 2021 |
As with most Solnit books (and appropriate for its subject), a meandering journey. Wide-ranging and thought-provoking. ( )
  heggiep | Jan 17, 2021 |
Sort of a history/sociological look at the simpliest of acts that most take for granted(unless you're one of those who will spend 5min searching for that spot closest to the door). A very enjoyable read. Would go hand-in-hand with Thich Nhat Hanh's "Long Road Turns To Joy: A Guide To Walking Meditation". Read this several years ago (2004). ( )
  feralcatbob | Dec 22, 2020 |
In [Wanderlust; a History of Walking], Rebecca Solnit creates a series of essay-like chapters that explore walking and what it has meant in human history. Everything from walking for pleasure, exercise, to conquer, as a form of protest, who has the right and luxury to walk, and walking in literature is represented. As might be expected with a book of this nature, I loved parts of this and was bored by other parts. I even skipped a chapter here or there if it wasn't grabbing me. But Solnit's writing is always excellent and overall I found a lot here to think about and enjoy.

Original publication date: 2001
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 324 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: like the author and the topic grabbed my interest ( )
  japaul22 | Aug 12, 2020 |
Rebecca Solnit makes the reader think of walking as much more than the means to get from one place to another. The restrictions placed on walking by property rights, gender, politics, occupations, attire and a multitude of other human constructs will make one consider walking in a new light. The freedom to walk where and when you want will never be taken for granted again. ( )
  varielle | Jul 28, 2020 |
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Maybe it’s my rediscovery of the joy of walking that coincided with my discovery of this book through [a:Craig Mod|65581|Craig Mod|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1437565930p2/65581.jpg]’s writing, but this is A Very Important Book. It traces the anthropological and cultural history of walking through the ages, interlacing personal anecdotes with historical observations, interviews, and sense impressions. It is at once poetry, scholarly writing, investigative journalism, and nonfiction. It changed my relationship with my legs and body, and with their relationship and the open world. ( )
  jtth | May 4, 2020 |
This is a most unusual book. It is a philosophical and literary history of walking. In addition to some remarkable insights, it provides a marvelous collection of quotable passages. ( )
  M_Clark | May 14, 2019 |
The first couple of chapters were engaging, but the constant skipping of topics slowed down my reading.

Stopped reading August 4, 2018, p. 77 ( )
  Bodagirl | Aug 5, 2018 |
An interesting demonstration of how a publisher can create a ludicrously overblown subtitle without including a single adjective. You clearly don't need to assert that a story is "extraordinary", "incredible" or even "true" - the simple, unadorned word "history" is already enough to make an extraordinary, incredible (but not, alas, true) claim for the subject-matter of the book that lies behind it...

But that probably isn't the author's fault, and other than on its front cover, this book doesn't make any real claim to be anything other than what it is, an interesting and worthwhile collection of essays grouped around the cultural (mostly literary) significance of Anglo-American attitudes to getting about on foot over the last couple of centuries. Solnit looks at obvious topics like the relationship between recreational walking and garden design; the importance of walking in nature for the Wordsworths and Thoreau and how that led to the later development of access and conservation movements; walking as a political act in parades, pilgrimages and protest marches; and travel-writing and the rise of mountaineering and challenge-walking. And, as a dedicated subversive and feminist, she also looks at some less obvious socio-political aspects of walking - walking and prostitution, exclusion of women and minorities from public spaces in which walking is possible, US cities built without any no provision for getting around on foot, and so on. Most of the essays bring together material from literary sources with reflections from her own personal experiences, and very often lead her to non-obvious insights into the ideological framework within which very familiar texts on walking are actually operating.

I enjoyed sharing Solnit's insights, but I'd (unrealistically) been expecting more, and found it a bit disappointing that so many "obvious" topics didn't get a look in. Wordsworth's walk to Italy gets detailed coverage, but there's no mention of Thomas Coryat, who did much the same walk (and subsequently walked from England to India!) two centuries earlier. One of my favourite 19th century travellers, George Borrow (admittedly, a rider as much as a walker) is also overlooked. Nor is there anything about Heine, Novalis, and the rest of the German romantics with their core idea of the Wanderer - which is particularly odd, because the Naturfreunde and Wandervogel movements they inspired get discussed quite extensively. And given the amount of literature it's inspired, it's surprising how little attention she pays to refugee-walking. Primo Levi's walk home from Auschwitz is mentioned only in passing, and there's nothing much about all the many books about being forced to leave your home on foot in wartime.

A good start, but someone really should write "A history of walking" one day! ( )
3 vote thorold | Jun 17, 2018 |
One of the best books on the history of walking. Solnit does it again! ( )
  MattMackane | Dec 9, 2017 |
“The history of walking is an amateur history, just as walking is an amateur act.”

“Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters, finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord.”

“Exploring the world is one of the best ways of exploring the mind, and walking travels both terrains.”

“Walking is, after all, an activity essentially unimproved since the dawn of time.”

^Yes, I love these quotes, but these four all happen, in the first twenty pages. The rest of the narrative, is more hit or miss. I had to keep reminding myself, that this is a history of walking and all the events mentioned here do not fit snugly into, everything I like about this basic mode of transportation, (I am a mailman for crying out loud!). That said, I found much of this history of walking, a bit dry. Yes, I can be selfish. Sue me, but please, do not get me wrong- Solnit is a fine writer, super smart and has really done her homework here, with meticulous precision. She did leave out bird walking, which has really helped spark my interest in strolling through various meadows and woods but there I go again, being self-absorbed.
To her credit, she does close it out, beautifully:

“This constellation called walking has a history, the history trod out by all those poets and philosophers and insurrectionaries, by jaywalkers, streetwalkers, pilgrims, tourists, hikers, mountaineers, but whether it has a future depends on whether those connecting paths are traveled still.” ( )
1 vote msf59 | Apr 4, 2017 |
This was a pretty great read, an interesting take on the walking culture, geography, and social patterns. It was far more academic than I expected, which when I write it out like that sounds snobbish but really it is neither praise nor criticism, just something of note about my experience reading it. I took a class where spatial theory and psychogeography played a key role and I felt like this book could have been usefully applied there. That said, Solnit's approach is way more accessible than reading de Certeau or especially Lefebre, which is definitely a good thing about this book. It's interesting and readable and educational.

I started reading it before taking a trip to Cuba, and thinking so much about travelling really put me into my pedestrian mind because I'm very much a walker when I'm in cities and when I'm in travel mode. I'm most often walking to commute, but even that type of walking is also so much more than commuting, which is what Solnit points out especially in the first part of the book. Walking as protest and rebellion was also wonderfully detailed, although it kept making obvious for me the sides of the picture that are left out. Because the focus is walking there is always this presumption of able-ness, of an able-bodied reader, and practically nothing said about those for whom walking is not a clarifying, liberating, enriching experience. She says practically nothing about those who cannot walk, or cannot walk easily or painlessly.

And it's strange because she does talk about the geographical restrictions that inhibit walkers, such as suburbs or living in dangerous neighbourhoods. And she talks about walking as a female, a chapter I reached when I was in Cuba after two days of walking alone in Havana, where I was indeed reminded again and again by catcalls and comments that the streets were not for me. It was therefore disappointing not to have anything said about disability and travel, though I suspect, as she says about cycling, it would be a whole separate book. But the lack of commentary on it felt as if she hadn't found a way to make sense of her Walking = Enlightenment philosophy where disability is concerned. It felt as if she hadn't found a way to phrase things that didn't say, "sorry, but this Enlightenment is only accessible to the able-bodied." And I doubt Solnit believes that, but it's the cornerstone of this book, really.

Everything else about it made it such a good read, though, and it would've been five stars if the above were addressed. ( )
1 vote likecymbeline | Apr 1, 2017 |
If there's one thing I enjoy as much as reading, it's walking, so a book about the history of walking is right up my street. Although, this is not so much a history (at least in chronological terms), more a gently meandering wander through both the highways and bye ways of the subject. And you are travelling with a very erudite enthusiast. So, we go by way of walking philosophers (Rousseau and Kierkegard), obviously Wordsworth and the romantics, a con side ration of the various theories of how, when and why Homo sapiens began to walk upright, walking in Jane Austen novels, a history of formal garden design, walking in cities like San Francisco, New York, London and Paris and so much more. Just like a really good walk, at almost every turn of the page, there's something new and interesting to experience. ( )
  stephengoldenberg | Apr 6, 2016 |
A cliché is inevitable to describe how Ms Solnit take her time to get into her stride and tails off a little tired and disoriented at the end. In between times she scales the heights and has wonderful views of the landscape. A history of walking is in reality a political manifesto. An environmentalist's call for a slower, more human scale world. To her credit she refuses to look back for a rose tinted future. Good at describing the walking done by others surprisingly incoherent and disjointed when it comes to her own perambulations. A writer who walks rather than a walker who writes. ( )
  Steve38 | Mar 27, 2015 |
Interesting as history of walking as recreation, nature appreciation escape from city life, etc. Feminists will be appalled by chapter on women--the assumption that any woman on the streets is there for sexual purposes backed up by laws allowing women to be arrested on mere suspicion. Also history of walkers associations in England enforcing traditional right of way across private property to maintain network of trails.
  ritaer | Mar 7, 2015 |
Skipped around a bit . . . viewed the chapters more as long-form essays that are interconnected by a single theme, and I focused on those areas that interested me the most. Loved entering some of the literary rabbit holes - now I have a stack of books and essays to tackle. ( )
  beckydj | May 28, 2014 |
There’s plenty to like here — a chapter reviewing the anthropology of bipedalism, little bit on Rosseau, Kierkegaard, a mention of Kant (unimportant because he walked for exercise: “Frail Immanuel Kant took his daily walk around Königsberg after dinner — but it was merely for exercise, because he did his thinking sitting by the stove and staring at the church tower out the window.”). A little Husserl. A paragraph, actually, followed by a condemnation of the entire sweep of postmodernists because they don’t treat walking. A good, lengthy treatment of Wordsworth, some stuff about walking clubs, including the Sierra Club. Most memorably some personal essays about her own excursions.

Although there’s plenty to like, I didn’t like it. I kept hearing a tone of smugness throughout (like in the bit about Kant) that constantly put me off. I’m not a fan of the Personal Essay and that may be behind my irritation, but the author doesn’t seem to enjoy walking much, except to the extent that the practice marks her moral superiority her to condemn people who don’t walk. The book reminded me of a joke my (vegan) daughter tells:

Q: How many vegans does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: I’m better than you.

I ride a bike for transportation and often notice a “cone of smugness” that surrounds some bicyclists, mostly recreational riders in Spandex. This book reminded me of them. ( )
  steve.clason | Feb 18, 2014 |
The book brings up many interesting subjects, but it feels unfinished and unfocused as a result, like it's trying to do too much with too little. A promising premise that might have worked out better as an article, or a series of articles. Trying to pad for book length causes a lot of repetition.

Also, printing quotations about walking along the bottom of every single page? Bad idea. ( )
  amelish | Sep 12, 2013 |
I like walking and a history of walking intrigued me. It was not quite what I expected as Solnit takes a philosophical and metaphysical approach to the concept of walking. The book includes ruminations on the biology of walking, pilgrimages, famed walkers like Peace Pilgrim, meditative walking, poets who walk (Wordsworth), walking clubs, hiking, climbing, walking in the city and the affects of sexual discrimination and racism on walkers, among many other topics. The last chapter is an interesting contrast of Las Vegas, a notoriously unfriendly city to walkers, developing a pedestrian core. Solnit insisted that her own story be part of the history by necessity, but I wish she hadn't as she comes across as preachy and didactic. Her voice appears throughout the text as one of nagging disapproval and it hampers my enjoyment of this book.

Favorite Passages:
"We talked about the more stately sense of time one has afoot and on public transit, where things must be planned and scheduled beforehand, rather than rushed through at the last minute,and about the sense of place that can only be gained on foot. Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors -- home, car, gym, office, shops -- disconnected from each other. On foot evertything stays connected, for while walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies those interiors. One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it." - p.9

"The new treadmills have two-horsepower engines. Once, a person might have hitched two horses to a carriage to go out into the world without walking; now she might plug in a two-horsepower motor to walk without going out into the world. ... So the treadmill requires far more economic and ecological interconnection that does taking a walk, but it makes far fewer experiential connections." - p. 265

Recommended books: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places by John R. Stilgoe, Lights Out for the Territory by Iain Sinclair and Snowshoeing Through Sewers: Adventures in New York City, New Jersey, and Philadelphia by Michael Aaron Rockland ( )
1 vote Othemts | Dec 1, 2010 |
A good mixture of the personal, a review of literature on the subject of walking and analysis. The chapter based approached means you can skip chapters you are not interested in, although some of them surprise you, so may be worth persevering with. For me the discussion about feminism and walking was particularly enjoyable and interesting. ( )
  CarolKub | Apr 10, 2009 |
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