We Get There By Walking

A Financial Times Summer Book of 2019 Seasoned adventurer Alastair Humphreys pushes himself to his very limits – busking his way across Spain with a violin he can barely play.

The fall after I graduated from college, I spent a month living at a contemplative retreat center in high desert outside of Sedona, Arizona. Silence was the order of the day...and of the night. Those who lived or stayed at the center spoke only at meals or to give instructions for the daily work we did to maintain the center, and during our morning and evening worship services. The rest of our time was spent in silence. In the entrance to the retreat center's common space hung a banner with these words: Pilgrim, there is no way. You make it by walking.

In 1909, Edward Payson Weston walked from New York to San Francisco, covering around 40 miles a day and greeted by wildly cheering audiences in every city. The New York Times called it the "first bona-fide walk ... across the American continent," and eagerly chronicled a journey in which Weston was beset by fatigue, mosquitos, vicious headwinds, and brutal heat. He was 70 years old. In The Last Great Walk, journalist Wayne Curtis uses the framework of Weston's fascinating and surprising story, and investigates exactly what we lost when we turned away from foot travel, and what we could potentially regain with America's new embrace of pedestrianism. From how our brains and legs evolved to accommodate our ancient traveling needs to the way that American cities have been designed to cater to cars and discourage pedestrians, Curtis guides readers through an engaging, intelligent exploration of how something as simple as the way we get from one place to another continues to shape our health, our environment, and even our national identity. Not walking, he argues, may be one of the most radical things humans have ever done.

One morning in 2011, Libby DeLana stepped outside her New England home for a walk. She did the same thing the next day, and the next. It became a daily habit that has culminated in her walking over 25,000 miles - the equivalent of the earth's circumference. In Do Walk, Libby shares the transformative nature of this simple yet powerful practice. She reveals how walking each day provides the time and space to reconnect with the world around us; process thoughts; improve our physical wellbeing; and unlock creativity. It is the ultimate navigational tool that helps us to see who we are - beyond titles and labels, and where we want to go. With stunning photography, this inspiring and reflective guide is an invitation to step outside, and see where the path takes us.

Offering a beguiling view of the history of walking, Wanderers guides us through the different ways of seeing—of being—articulated by ten pathfinding women writers. “A wild portrayal of the passion and spirit of female walkers and the deep sense of ‘knowing’ that they found along the path.”—Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path “I opened this book and instantly found that I was part of a conversation I didn't want to leave. A dazzling, inspirational history.”—Helen Mort, author of No Map Could Show Them This is a book about ten women over the past three hundred years who have found walking essential to their sense of themselves, as people and as writers. Wanderers traces their footsteps, from eighteenth-century parson’s daughter Elizabeth Carter—who desired nothing more than to be taken for a vagabond in the wilds of southern England—to modern walker-writers such as Nan Shepherd and Cheryl Strayed. For each, walking was integral, whether it was rambling for miles across the Highlands, like Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt, or pacing novels into being, as Virginia Woolf did around Bloomsbury. Offering a beguiling view of the history of walking, Wanderers guides us through the different ways of seeing—of being—articulated by these ten pathfinding women.

Over 35 mindful walking exercises for finding balance, building awareness, and reducing stress—from a wellness teacher and fitness expert Glenn Berkenkamp invites us to discover how we sense, move, think, and feel in our bodies. By reframing the joys and opportunities presented to us by the act of walking, he shows us how to become reflective and inwardly directed, even as we take in the world around us. With 35 different walks, and with the help of a “Which Walks to Do When” user guide, Glenn gives us options for every occasion and emotion. Feeling off-center? Try a centering walk. Feeling down? Lift your spirit with a gratitude walk or a prayer walk. There are walks for listening, grounding, and grieving, as well as rain walks, full moon walks, mindful dog walks, and more. He includes walks for all ability levels, including fun walks for children. As we walk with Glenn, we settle, clarify, and balance our bodies, minds, and spirits—opening to new perspectives and possibilities we didn’t know were there.

In Walking, Henry David Thoreau talks about the importance of nature to mankind, and how people cannot survive without nature, physically, mentally, and spiritually, yet we seem to be spending more and more time entrenched by society. For Thoreau walking is a self-reflective spiritual act that occurs only when you are away from society, that allows you to learn about who you are, and find other aspects of yourself that have been chipped away by society. This new edition of Thoreau's classic work includes annotations and a biographical essay.

This “passionate affirmation of the simple life” explores how walking has influenced history’s greatest thinkers—from Henry David Thoreau and John Muir to Gandhi and Nietzsche (Observer) “It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.” —Nietzsche In this French bestseller, leading thinker and philosopher Frédéric Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B—the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble—and reveals what they say about us. Gros draws attention to other thinkers who also saw walking as something central to their practice. On his travels he ponders Thoreau’s eager seclusion in Walden Woods; the reason Rimbaud walked in a fury, while Nerval rambled to cure his melancholy. He shows us how Rousseau walked in order to think, while Nietzsche wandered the mountainside to write. In contrast, Kant marched through his hometown every day, exactly at the same hour, to escape the compulsion of thought. Brilliant and erudite, A Philosophy of Walking is an entertaining and insightful manifesto for putting one foot in front of the other.

"There are few people who have done more for walking, or who know more about walking, than Maggie Spilner.... This is truly a walking encyclopedia for the new millennium."--From the foreword by Elaine Ward, founder and director of the North American Racewalking Foundation From the walking editor of America's number one healthy living magazine comes the definitive guide to America's number one fitness activity: walking. Join Prevention's Maggie Spilner as she introduces you to the tools and techniques that can help you get more from your walking routine. You'll go farther and faster, with greater comfort and less risk of injury. Prevention's Complete Book of Walking features: *Three workout plans to help you walk off extra pounds (page 97) *Step-by-step instructions for finding perfect-fitting shoes (page 47) *Yoga poses that support an efficient, fluid stride (page 131) *A buyer's guide for choosing the best treadmill (page 60) *A complete program to train for a 5-K event (page 151) Prevention's Complete Book of Walking also features the 6-week Dynamic Walking program developed by Suki Munsell, Ph.D. You'll learn to move your body with grace, control, and power, so you'll get even greater benefit from your walking routine.

A remarkable story of friendship, love, and courage. When Maya Angelou and Tavis Smiley met in 1986, he was twenty-one and she was fifty-eight. For the next twenty-eight years, they shared an unlikely, special bond. Angelou was a teacher and a maternal figure to Smiley, and they talked often, of art, politics, history, race, religion, music, love, purpose, and -- more than anything -- courage. Courage to be open, to follow dreams, to believe in oneself. In My Journey with Maya, Smiley recalls a joyful friendship filled to the brim with sparkling conversation -- in Angelou's gardens surrounded by her caged birds, before lectures, sharing meals, and on breaks from it all, they sought each other out for comfort, advice, and above all else, friendship. It began when he, a recent college graduate and a poor kid from a big family in the Midwest, was invited to join the revered writer on a sojourn to Africa. He would be handling her bags, but Maya didn't let that stop a friendship waiting to happen. Angelou was generous, challenging, and inspirational. Like a mother to him, she was selfless. Here Tavis Smiley shares his personal memories of Maya Angelou, of a decades-long friendship with one of history's most fascinating women, one who left as indelible an imprint on American culture as she did on him.