100 Best Walking Books of All Time
We've researched and ranked the best walking books in the world, based on recommendations from world experts, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. Learn more
Featuring recommendations from Timothy Ferriss, Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson, and 65 other experts. 1
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At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State —... more
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State —... more
Nancy GoldstoneI found the narrative honest and riveting. The author used the journey through the hiking trail to work out her problems. (Source)
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The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America—majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way—and a couple of bears. Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in). less
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This volume provides a history of walking, exploring the relationship between thinking and walking and between walking and culture. The author argues for the preservation of the time and space in which to walk in an ever more car-dependent and accelerated world. less
Recommended by Thom and Beth Atkinson, and 1 others. Thom and Beth AtkinsonShe says that ‘to trace even an imaginary route is to trace the spirit or thought of what passed there before’. (Source)
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"In wildness is the preservation of the world," -- A lecture by Thoreau which became one of the seminal works of the early environmental movement. less
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Dawne szlaki rzadko znikają, chyba że pochłonie je morze albo przykryje asfalt. Trwają pod postacią ledwo dostrzegalnych elementów krajobrazu – widocznych dla tych, którzy wiedzą, na co zwracać uwagę.
Robert Macfarlane odkrywa przed nami zapomniany świat: trakty, drogi, szlaki handlowe i trasy, którymi kiedyś podążali pielgrzymi. Pieszo i na rowerze, w upale i mrozie, z pęcherzami na nogach, niekiedy bez snu – przemierza południowo-wschodnią Anglię, północno-zachodnią Szkocję, Hiszpanię, prowincję Sichuan i Palestynę. Jego duchowym przewodnikiem w snuciu opowieści o wzajemnym... more
Robert Macfarlane odkrywa przed nami zapomniany świat: trakty, drogi, szlaki handlowe i trasy, którymi kiedyś podążali pielgrzymi. Pieszo i na rowerze, w upale i mrozie, z pęcherzami na nogach, niekiedy bez snu – przemierza południowo-wschodnią Anglię, północno-zachodnią Szkocję, Hiszpanię, prowincję Sichuan i Palestynę. Jego duchowym przewodnikiem w snuciu opowieści o wzajemnym... more
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Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack of quotidian minutiae is a letter addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl from a woman he hasn't seen or heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye.
Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. But then, as... more
Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. But then, as... more
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In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on an extraordinary journey by foot - from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the reader with him as far as Hungary. It is a book of compelling glimpses - not only of the events which were curdling Europe at that time, but also of its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers, the sun on the Bavarian snow, the storks and frogs, the hospitable burgomasters who welcomed him, and that world's grandeurs and courtesies. His powers of... more
Colin ThubronThis is the first volume of his journey in 1933-34 from the Hook of Holland, as he called it, to what he insisted on calling Constantinople (Istanbul). It was to be in three volumes. This one takes him beyond Vienna. The second volume, Between the Woods and the Water, takes him through Hungary to the Balkans. The third volume was going to get him across Romania to Istanbul, but he never wrote it.... (Source)
Quentin Hardy@parul_sehgal @DwightGarner @jenszalai Excellent list. "This Boy's Life" pairs well with "The Duke of Deception," brother Geoffrey Wolff's boyhood with their con man father. Also "A Time of Gifts" is a memoir as well as a great travel book, particularly when the way it came about becomes part of the tale. (Source)
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A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.
The Road is the... more
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.
The Road is the... more
Oprah WinfreyIt's got everything that's grabbing the headlines in America right now. It's about race and class, the economy, culture, immigration and the danger of the us-versus-them mentality. And underneath it all, pumps the heart and soul of family love, the pursuit of happiness, and what home really means. (Source)
James MillerIt is such a powerful story … against an utterly bleak scenario you have the father and the son, and the novel builds up this incredibly emotive relationship. (Source)
Mark BoyleIn my view, The Road is the greatest novel ever written, and McCarthy one of the most important writers of the last hundred years. Its bleakness is interspersed with sentences so beautiful I wept. (Source)
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The Rings of Saturn — with its curious archive of photographs — records a walking tour along the east coast of England. A few of the things which cross the path and mind of its narrator (who both is and is not Sebald) are lonely eccentrics, Sir Thomas Browne's skull, a matchstick model of the Temple of Jerusalem, recession-hit seaside towns, wooded hills, Joseph Conrad, Rembrandt's "Anatomy Lesson," the natural history of the herring, the massive bombings of WWII, the dowager empress Tzu Hsi, and the silk industry in Norwich. less
Nicholas ShakespeareOf all those liberated by Chatwin’s trampling of fence-posts, none stands higher than W. G. Sebald. (Source)
Bronwyn Law-ViljoenSebald is interesting because he published all of his books with photographs in them, and this one is interesting because it’s kind a Wordsworthian walking trip. (Source)
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A lyrical account of an activity that is essential for our sanity, equilibrium, and well-being, from the author of Silence ("A book to be handled and savored." --The Wall Street Journal)
Placing one foot in front of the other, embarking on the journey of discovery, and experiencing the joy of exploration--these activities are intrinsic to our nature. Our ancestors traveled long distances on foot, gaining new experiences and learning from them. But as universal as walking is, each of us will experience it differently. For Erling Kagge, it is the... more
Placing one foot in front of the other, embarking on the journey of discovery, and experiencing the joy of exploration--these activities are intrinsic to our nature. Our ancestors traveled long distances on foot, gaining new experiences and learning from them. But as universal as walking is, each of us will experience it differently. For Erling Kagge, it is the... more
Don't have time to read the top Walking books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
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In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape.
Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us.... more
Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us.... more
Robert MacfarlaneThis book is a geo-philosophical meditation on the Cairngorm landscape in particular, but more generally on how mind and place interpenetrate, as Shepherd puts it. It’s a sensual and, well, erotic text. Shepherd talks about tasting the landscape, and describes walking barefoot, sleeping out. It’s the record of a long-term and full-body immersion in a place. (Source)
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Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years is terminally ill, their home and livelihood is taken away. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.
They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk... more
They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk... more
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Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum.
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Richard BransonToday is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. (Source)
Cressida CowellThe Hobbit is such a richly imagined fantasy that, especially as a child, you can live in it. It is so completely immersive. (Source)
Lev GrossmanFirst up, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, by JRR Tolkien. But you knew I was going to say that. This one book, which was published in 1937, defined so many variables for the fantasy tradition that are still in place today. Tolkien’s extraordinary achievement was to recover the epic landscapes of Anglo-Saxon myth, bring them back to life, and then to take us through them on foot, so we could... (Source)
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Winner of the 2014 National Outdoor Book Awards for History/Biography
Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, having survived a rattlesnake strike, two hurricanes, and a run-in with gangsters from Harlem, she stood atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin. There she sang the first verse of “America, the... more
Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, having survived a rattlesnake strike, two hurricanes, and a run-in with gangsters from Harlem, she stood atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin. There she sang the first verse of “America, the... more
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Continuing the epic foot journey across Europe begun in A Time of Gifts
The journey that Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on in 1933—to cross Europe on foot with an emergency allowance of one pound a day—proved so rich in experiences that when much later he sat down to describe them, they overflowed into more than one volume. Undertaken as the storms of war gathered, and providing a background for the events that were beginning to unfold in Central Europe, Leigh Fermor’s still-unfinished account of his journey has established itself as a modern classic. Between the... more
The journey that Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on in 1933—to cross Europe on foot with an emergency allowance of one pound a day—proved so rich in experiences that when much later he sat down to describe them, they overflowed into more than one volume. Undertaken as the storms of war gathered, and providing a background for the events that were beginning to unfold in Central Europe, Leigh Fermor’s still-unfinished account of his journey has established itself as a modern classic. Between the... more
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Introducing the first eight volumes of the fan-favorite, New York Times Best Seller series collected into one massive paperback collection.
In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living. With The Walking Dead #1-48, this compendium features more than one thousand pages chronicling the start of Robert Kirkman's Eisner Award-winning story of zombie horror, from Rick Grimes waking up alone in a hospital, his band of survivors seeking refuge on an isolated farm and the controversial introduction of Woodbury despot, The Governor. less
In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living. With The Walking Dead #1-48, this compendium features more than one thousand pages chronicling the start of Robert Kirkman's Eisner Award-winning story of zombie horror, from Rick Grimes waking up alone in a hospital, his band of survivors seeking refuge on an isolated farm and the controversial introduction of Woodbury despot, The Governor. less
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In A Philosophy of Walking, a bestseller in France, leading thinker 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... more
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... more
Recommended by Austin Kleon, and 1 others. Austin KleonA sausage-fest, but a good sausage-fest. (Source)
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"An eloquent (and compulsively readable) reminder that, though we're laying waste the world, nature still holds sway over much of the earth's surface."
Bill McKibben
Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? That is the question that Robert Macfarlane poses to himself as he embarks on a series of breathtaking journeys through some of the archipelago's most remarkable landscapes. He climbs, walks, and swims by day and spends his nights sleeping on cliff-tops and in ancient meadows and wildwoods. With elegance and passion he entwines history,... more
Bill McKibben
Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? That is the question that Robert Macfarlane poses to himself as he embarks on a series of breathtaking journeys through some of the archipelago's most remarkable landscapes. He climbs, walks, and swims by day and spends his nights sleeping on cliff-tops and in ancient meadows and wildwoods. With elegance and passion he entwines history,... more
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When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning, he learned... more
Richard BransonToday is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. (Source)
Katie Phang@AshaRangappa_ @yashar It’s an amazing book! (Source)
Holger Seimeval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'theceolibrary_com-large-mobile-banner-2','ezslot_6',164,'0','1'])); When it comes to adventure stories, I love Into Thin Air. (Source)
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At Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau reflected on simpler living in the natural world. By removing himself from the distractions of materialism, Thoreau hoped to not only improve his spiritual life but also gain a better understanding of society through solitary introspection.
In Walden, Thoreau condenses his two-year, two-month, two-day stay into a single year, using the four seasons to symbolize human development—a cycle of life shared by both nature and man. A celebration of personal renewal through self-reliance, independence, and simplicity, composed for all of us living... more
In Walden, Thoreau condenses his two-year, two-month, two-day stay into a single year, using the four seasons to symbolize human development—a cycle of life shared by both nature and man. A celebration of personal renewal through self-reliance, independence, and simplicity, composed for all of us living... more
Laura Dassow WallsThe book that we love as Walden began in the journal entries that he wrote starting with his first day at the pond. (Source)
Roman KrznaricIn 1845 the American naturalist went out to live in the woods of Western Massachusetts. Thoreau was one of the great masters of the art of simple living. (Source)
John KaagThere’s this idea that philosophy can blend into memoir and that, ideally, philosophy, at its best, is to help us through the business of living with people, within communities. This is a point that Thoreau’s Walden gave to me, as a writer, and why I consider it so valuable for today. (Source)
Don't have time to read the top Walking books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
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On the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for a race known as "The Long Walk." If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying. less
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Twenty-five years ago, a disillusioned young man set out on a walk across America. This is the book he wrote about that journey -- a classic account of the reawakening of his faith in himself and his country.
"I started out searching for myself and my country," Peter Jenkins writes, "and found both." In this timeless classic, Jenkins describes how disillusionment with society in the 1970s drove him out onto the road on a walk across America. His experiences remain as sharp and telling today as they were twenty-five years ago -- from the timeless secrets of life, learned from a... more
"I started out searching for myself and my country," Peter Jenkins writes, "and found both." In this timeless classic, Jenkins describes how disillusionment with society in the 1970s drove him out onto the road on a walk across America. His experiences remain as sharp and telling today as they were twenty-five years ago -- from the timeless secrets of life, learned from a... more
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In 2009, while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, Robert Moor began to wonder about the paths that lie beneath our feet: How do they form? Why do some improve over time while others fade? What makes us follow or strike off on our own?
Over the course of the next seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the miniscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee trails, and traced the origins of our road networks and the Internet. In each chapter, Moor interweaves his adventures with findings... more
Over the course of the next seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the miniscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee trails, and traced the origins of our road networks and the Internet. In each chapter, Moor interweaves his adventures with findings... more
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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“Unarguably the best single-volume biography of Churchill . . . A brilliant feat of storytelling, monumental in scope, yet put together with tenderness for a man who had always believed that he would be Britain’s savior.” —Wall Street Journal
In this landmark biography of Winston Churchill based on extensive new material, the true genius of the man, statesman and leader can finally be fully seen and understood by the bestselling, award-winning author of Napoleon and The Storm of War.
When we seek... more
“Unarguably the best single-volume biography of Churchill . . . A brilliant feat of storytelling, monumental in scope, yet put together with tenderness for a man who had always believed that he would be Britain’s savior.” —Wall Street Journal
In this landmark biography of Winston Churchill based on extensive new material, the true genius of the man, statesman and leader can finally be fully seen and understood by the bestselling, award-winning author of Napoleon and The Storm of War.
When we seek... more
Recommended by Robert Benzie, and 1 others. Robert BenzieBest book I have read this year. https://t.co/Vv3GlB426d (Source)
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Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability.
The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that's easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at.
Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exactly what needs to be done is the trick. In this essential new book, Speck reveals the invisible workings... more
The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that's easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at.
Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exactly what needs to be done is the trick. In this essential new book, Speck reveals the invisible workings... more
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In the winter of 1974, filmmaker Werner Herzog made a three week solo journey from Munich to Paris on foot to visit his ailing friend, film critic and historian Lotte Eisner. During this monumental odyssey through a seemingly endless blizzard, Herzog documented everything he saw and felt with intense sincerity. This diary is dotted with rants about the extreme cold and utter loneliness, poetic descriptions of the snowy countryside, along with personal philosophizing. What is most remarkable is that the reading of this book flows with the experience of watching his films: through this walk we... more
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"I was nineteen years old, still soft at the edges, but with a confident belief in good fortune. I carried a small rolled-up tent, a violin in a blanket, a change of clothes, a tin of treacle biscuits, and some cheese. I was excited, vain-glorious, knowing I had far to go; but not, as yet, how far." Despite this romantic and optimistic opening, what Lee finds is the most primitive and feudal country in Europe, a peninsula untouched by the modern world, a land of labor without dignity, a church devoid of compassion, and a country ripe for revolutionary change.
There is humor, love,... more
There is humor, love,... more
Alastair HumphreysReading Laurie Lee was suddenly a very different perspective on adventure, because he was just a normal young guy. He was not very tough. He wasn’t very fit. He didn’t claim to be trying to do anything extraordinary. He was just out in the world, living vividly and being curious and I loved that, mostly because it sounded like me. Ever since I read As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning I thought... (Source)
Jason WebsterThe best book in terms of engaging with this dreamy and poetic truth at the heart of Spain. (Source)
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In summer 2010 Simon Armitage decided to walk the Pennine Way. The challenging 256-mile route is usually approached from south to north, from Edale in the Peak District to Kirk Yetholm, the other side of the Scottish border. He resolved to tackle it the other way round: through beautiful and bleak terrain, across lonely fells and into the howling wind, he would be walking home, towards the Yorkshire village where he was born.
Travelling as a 'modern troubadour' without a penny in his pocket, he stopped along the way to give poetry readings in village halls, churches, pubs and... more
Travelling as a 'modern troubadour' without a penny in his pocket, he stopped along the way to give poetry readings in village halls, churches, pubs and... more
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Whether she is contemplating the history of walking as a cultural and political experience over the past two hundred years (Wanderlust), or using the life of photographer Eadweard Muybridge as a lens to discuss the transformations of space and time in late nineteenth-century America (River of Shadows), Rebecca Solnit has emerged as an inventive and original writer whose mind is daring in the connections it makes. A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Solnit's own life to explore the issues of wandering, being lost, and the uses of... more
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The original Pictorial Guide to the Eastern Fells of Lakeland - freshly reproduced from Wainwright's original pages. less
Don't have time to read the top Walking books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
31
The original Pictorial Guide to the Western Fells of Lakeland - freshly reproduced from Wainwright's original pages. less
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In the winter of 1933 eighteen-year-old Patrick (“Paddy”) Leigh Fermor set out to walk across Europe, starting in Holland and ending in Constantinople, a trip that took him the better part of a year. Decades later, when he was well over fifty, Leigh Fermor told the story of that life-changing journey in A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water, two books now celebrated as among the most vivid, absorbing, delightful, and beautifully-written travel books of all time.
The Broken Road is the long and avidly awaited account of the final leg of his... more
The Broken Road is the long and avidly awaited account of the final leg of his... more
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Want to know where Chuck Palahniuk's tonsils currently reside?
Been looking for a naked mannequin to hide in your kitchen cabinets?
Curious about Chuck's debut in an MTV music video?
What goes on at the Scum Center?
How do you get to the Apocalypse Café?
In the closest thing he may ever write to an autobiography, Chuck Palahniuk provides answers to all these questions and more as he takes you through the streets, sewers, and local haunts of Portland, Oregon.
According to Katherine Dunn, author of the cult classic Geek Love, Portland is the... more
Been looking for a naked mannequin to hide in your kitchen cabinets?
Curious about Chuck's debut in an MTV music video?
What goes on at the Scum Center?
How do you get to the Apocalypse Café?
In the closest thing he may ever write to an autobiography, Chuck Palahniuk provides answers to all these questions and more as he takes you through the streets, sewers, and local haunts of Portland, Oregon.
According to Katherine Dunn, author of the cult classic Geek Love, Portland is the... more
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First published in 1968, Desert Solitaire is one of Edward Abbey’s most critically acclaimed works and marks his first foray into the world of nonfiction writing. Written while Abbey was working as a ranger at Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah, Desert Solitaire is a rare view of one man’s quest to experience nature in its purest form.
Through prose that is by turns passionate and poetic, Abbey reflects on the condition of our remaining wilderness and the future of a civilization that cannot reconcile itself to living in the natural world as well as his own internal... more
Through prose that is by turns passionate and poetic, Abbey reflects on the condition of our remaining wilderness and the future of a civilization that cannot reconcile itself to living in the natural world as well as his own internal... more
Robert MacfarlaneAbbey is full of passion, fury and contempt – a fiery fighter to shake up the sometimes over-tranquil atmosphere of nature writing. (Source)
Hari KunzruHe has a deep love for this place and he’s amusing to read because he’s such a strong personality. His writing is extraordinary. (Source)
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In this extraordinary book, Bruce Chatwin has adapted a literary form common until the eighteenth century though rare in ours; a story of ideas in which two companions, traveling and talking together, explore the hopes and dreams that animate both them and the people they encounter. Set in almost uninhabitable regions of Central Australia, The Songlines asks and tries to answer these questions: Why is man the most restless, dissatisfied of animals? Why do wandering people conceive the world as perfect whereas sedentary ones always try to change it? Why have the great teachers—Christ or... more
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The original Pictorial Guide to the Northern Fells of Lakeland - freshly reproduced from Wainwright's original pages. less
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Turn Every Walk into a Game of Detection
When writer and navigator Tristan Gooley journeys outside, he sees a natural world filled with clues. The roots of a tree indicate the sun’s direction; the Big Dipper tells the time; a passing butterfly hints at the weather; a sand dune reveals prevailing wind; the scent of cinnamon suggests altitude; a budding flower points south. To help you understand nature as he does, Gooley shares more than 850 tips for forecasting, tracking, and more, gathered from decades spent walking the landscape around his home and around the world.... more
When writer and navigator Tristan Gooley journeys outside, he sees a natural world filled with clues. The roots of a tree indicate the sun’s direction; the Big Dipper tells the time; a passing butterfly hints at the weather; a sand dune reveals prevailing wind; the scent of cinnamon suggests altitude; a budding flower points south. To help you understand nature as he does, Gooley shares more than 850 tips for forecasting, tracking, and more, gathered from decades spent walking the landscape around his home and around the world.... more
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The original Pictorial Guide to the Central Fells of Lakeland - freshly reproduced from Wainwright's original pages. less
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The Fellowship was scattered. Some were bracing hopelessly for war against the ancient evil of Sauron. Some were contending with the treachery of the wizard Saruman. Only Frodo and Sam were left to take the accursed Ring of Power to be destroyed in Mordor–the dark Kingdom where Sauron was supreme. Their guide was Gollum, deceitful and lust-filled, slave to the corruption of the Ring. Thus continues the magnificent, bestselling tale of adventure begun in The Fellowship of the Ring, which reaches its soul-stirring climax in The Return of the King. less
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It’s the last day of 1984, and 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish is about to take a walk.
As she traverses a grittier Manhattan, a city anxious after an attack by a still-at-large subway vigilante, she encounters bartenders, bodega clerks, chauffeurs, security guards, bohemians, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be—in surprising moments of generosity and grace. While she strolls, Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest-paid advertising woman in America—a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown.
A... more
As she traverses a grittier Manhattan, a city anxious after an attack by a still-at-large subway vigilante, she encounters bartenders, bodega clerks, chauffeurs, security guards, bohemians, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be—in surprising moments of generosity and grace. While she strolls, Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest-paid advertising woman in America—a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown.
A... more
Don't have time to read the top Walking books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
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- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
41
From the best-selling, award-winning author of Landmarks and The Old Ways, a haunting voyage into the planet’s past and future.
Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.
In this highly anticipated sequel to his international bestseller... more
Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.
In this highly anticipated sequel to his international bestseller... more
Jonathan Green@mmbrenn yes the best book i read last year without question. beautiful. harrowing. (Source)
Cal FlynHaving climbed the highest heights in his debut Mountains of the Mind, Macfarlane now dives down to the lowest of the lows. He goes caving in limestone caverns deep underground, rattles through salt mines under the sea in carts and stumbles across (literal) underground subcultures in the Paris catacombs, all interwoven with learned digressions into geological epochs and classical conceptions of... (Source)
Alastair HumphreysThe cleverest and nicest man in the world of travel writing has just published a brilliant new book which you should definitely buy. And so has @robgmacfarlane... 😂 https://t.co/7tWMRoB08W https://t.co/2UmUfDUqpt (Source)
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Librarian's Note: An alternate cover edition can be found here
In April, 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, a party of moose hunters found his decomposed body. How... more
In April, 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, a party of moose hunters found his decomposed body. How... more
Recommended by Holger Seim, and 1 others. Holger SeimWhen it comes to adventure stories, Into the Wild. (Source)
43
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • Colum McCann’s beloved novel inspired by Philippe Petit’s daring high-wire stunt, which is also depicted in the film The Walk starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt
In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s... more
In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s... more
Recommended by Esi Edugyan, and 1 others. Esi EdugyanI have read it a few times now, and I’m still trying to puzzle out how he fit those strands together so beautifully. It is a miracle of a novel. (Source)
44
Combining accounts of legendary mountain ascents with vivid descriptions of his own forays into wild, high landscapes, Robert McFarlane reveals how the mystery of the world’s highest places has came to grip the Western imagination—and perennially draws legions of adventurers up the most perilous slopes.
His story begins three centuries ago, when mountains were feared as the forbidding abodes of dragons and other mysterious beasts. In the mid-1700s the attentions of both science and poetry sparked a passion for mountains; Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Lord Byron extolled the sublime... more
His story begins three centuries ago, when mountains were feared as the forbidding abodes of dragons and other mysterious beasts. In the mid-1700s the attentions of both science and poetry sparked a passion for mountains; Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Lord Byron extolled the sublime... more
Recommended by Sara Maitland, and 1 others. 45
The original Pictorial Guide to the Southern Fells of Lakeland - freshly reproduced from Wainwright's original pages. less
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From one of America’s most beloved storytellers comes the inspiring third installment of the bestselling series, The Walk, the ongoing story of one man’s unrelenting search for hope.
Join one of America’s beloved storytellers on a walk like no other: one man’s unrelenting search for hope.
Reeling from the sudden loss of his wife, his home, and his business, Alan Christoffersen, a once-successful advertising executive, has left everything he knew behind and set off on an extraordinary cross-country journey. Carrying only a backpack, he is walking from... more
Join one of America’s beloved storytellers on a walk like no other: one man’s unrelenting search for hope.
Reeling from the sudden loss of his wife, his home, and his business, Alan Christoffersen, a once-successful advertising executive, has left everything he knew behind and set off on an extraordinary cross-country journey. Carrying only a backpack, he is walking from... more
47
The original Pictorial Guide to the North Western Fells of Lakeland - freshly reproduced from Wainwright's original pages. less
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Just in time for the new season of The Walking Dead on AMC, the fan-favorite, New York Times bestseller series returns with its FOURTH massive paperback collection! With over 1,000 pages, this volume contains the next chapter of ROBERT KIRKMAN and CHARLIE ADLARD's Eisner Award-winning continuing story of survival horror.
From the Whisperers to the Commonwealth, Rick Grimes meets new allies and enemies to the way to reclaiming the world from the dead. Wars are started, and dear friends fall...
Collects THE WALKING DEAD #149-193.
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From the Whisperers to the Commonwealth, Rick Grimes meets new allies and enemies to the way to reclaiming the world from the dead. Wars are started, and dear friends fall...
Collects THE WALKING DEAD #149-193.
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NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
Robyn Davidson's opens the memoir of her perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea with only four camels and a dog for company with the following words: “I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back."
Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine... more
Robyn Davidson's opens the memoir of her perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea with only four camels and a dog for company with the following words: “I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back."
Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine... more
Recommended by Alastair Humphreys, and 1 others. Alastair HumphreysTracks is just fantastically well written. (Source)
Don't have time to read the top Walking books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
51
'Flâneuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities.
That is an imaginary definition.'
If the word flâneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flâneuse?
In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir,... more
That is an imaginary definition.'
If the word flâneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flâneuse?
In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir,... more
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Loosely based on the Odyssey, this landmark of modern literature follows ordinary Dubliners in 1904. Capturing a single day in the life of Dubliner Leopold Bloom, his friends Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus, his wife Molly, and a scintillating cast of supporting characters, Joyce pushes Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. Captivating experimental techniques range from interior monologues to exuberant wordplay and earthy humor. A major achievement in 20th century literature. less
Debbie MillmanI also really love a line from [this book], which is 'The longest way around is the shortest way home.' (Source)
Robin RobertsonThere is more going on in one sentence in Ulysses than there is in most contemporary novels. (Source)
Robin RobertsonThere is more going on in one sentence in Ulysses than there is in most contemporary novels. (Source)
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The original Pictorial Guide to the Far Eastern Fells of Lakeland - freshly reproduced from Wainwright's original pages. less
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How to Walk is the fourth title in Parallax’s popular Mindfulness Essentials Series of how-to titles by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, introducing beginners and reminding seasoned practitioners of the essentials of mindfulness practice. Slow, concentrated walking while focusing on in- and out-breaths allows for a unique opportunity to be in the present. There is no need to arrive somewhere—each step is the arrival to concentration, joy, insight, and the momentary enlightenment of aliveness. When your foot touches the Earth with awareness, you make yourself alive and the Earth real, and... more
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How many hours are in a day when you don't spend half of them watching television?
When is the last time any of us REALLY worked to get something that we wanted? How long has it been since any of us really needed something that we wanted?
The world we knew is gone.
The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility.
An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months society has crumbled - no government, no grocery stores,... more
When is the last time any of us REALLY worked to get something that we wanted? How long has it been since any of us really needed something that we wanted?
The world we knew is gone.
The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility.
An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months society has crumbled - no government, no grocery stores,... more
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In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also... more
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To the River is the story of the Ouse, the Sussex river in which Virginia Woolf drowned in 1941. One midsummer week over sixty years later, Olivia Laing walked Woolf's river from source to sea. The result is a passionate investigation into how history resides in a landscape - and how ghosts never quite leave the places they love. Along the way, Laing explores the roles rivers play in human lives, tracing their intricate flow through literature and mythology alike. To the River excavates all sorts of stories from the Ouse's marshy banks, from the brutal Barons' War of the thirteenth... more
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Collects issues #1-6.
Rick Grimes is not prepared for this. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family he must now sort through the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. less
Rick Grimes is not prepared for this. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family he must now sort through the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. less
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Returning with the second eight volumes of the fan-favorite, New York Times bestseller series, The Walking Dead, collected into one massive paperback collection!
This is the perfect collection for any fan of the Emmy Award-winning television series on AMC: over one-thousand pages chronicling the next chapter of Robert Kirkman's Eisner Award-winning continuing story of survival horror - beginning with Rick Grimes' struggle to survive after the prison raid, to the group's finding short solace in The Community, and the devastation that follows. In a world ruled by the dead, we are... more
This is the perfect collection for any fan of the Emmy Award-winning television series on AMC: over one-thousand pages chronicling the next chapter of Robert Kirkman's Eisner Award-winning continuing story of survival horror - beginning with Rick Grimes' struggle to survive after the prison raid, to the group's finding short solace in The Community, and the devastation that follows. In a world ruled by the dead, we are... more
Don't have time to read the top Walking books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
61
Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative as Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960s up to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism and everyday life in the late twentieth century. Now finally available in a superb English translation approved by the author, Debord's text remains as crucial as ever for understanding the contemporary effects of power, which are increasingly inseparable from the new virtual...
moreSanja ZepanThe most dramatic change was definitely when I read Guy Debord's The Society of Spectacle in high school. That book made me go study communicology and media, instead of everything else I wanted to study back then. It really cemented my university application. (Source)
Dave Elitch[Dave Elitch recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)
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Following his trek along the length of the Nile River, explorer Levison Wood takes on his greatest challenge yet-navigating the treacherous foothills of the Himalayas, the world's highest mountain range.
Praised by Bear Grylls, Levison Wood has been called "the toughest man on TV" (The Times UK). Now, following in the footsteps of the great explorers, Levison recounts the beauty and danger he found along the Silk Road route of Afghanistan, the Line of Control between Pakistan and India, the disputed territories of Kashmir and the earth-quake ravaged lands of Nepal. Over the... more
Praised by Bear Grylls, Levison Wood has been called "the toughest man on TV" (The Times UK). Now, following in the footsteps of the great explorers, Levison recounts the beauty and danger he found along the Silk Road route of Afghanistan, the Line of Control between Pakistan and India, the disputed territories of Kashmir and the earth-quake ravaged lands of Nepal. Over the... more
63
Humorous, fascinating, and science?based, the bestselling first edition of Move Your DNA has been updated and expanded to include a comprehensive three-level exercise program. In layperson-friendly terms Move Your DNA addresses the vast quantities of disease we are suffering from, identifying our lack of movement as the primary cause. Readers can use the corrective exercises and lifestyle changes Katy Bowman has created to help each of us transition to healthy, naturally moving bodies. Move Your DNA explains the science behind our need for natural movementright down to the cellular level. It... more
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Alternate cover edition for ISBN 978-1480169111
For previous cover edition see here
Shortlisted for Outdoor Book of the Year by The Great Outdoors Magazine
The second book from award winning writer Keith Foskett
The Pacific Crest Trail stretches some 2,650 miles from the Mexican border to Canada. It meanders through the scorching deserts of California, the dramatic Sierra Nevada, the volcanic landscape of Oregon and the vast forest of... more
For previous cover edition see here
Shortlisted for Outdoor Book of the Year by The Great Outdoors Magazine
The second book from award winning writer Keith Foskett
The Pacific Crest Trail stretches some 2,650 miles from the Mexican border to Canada. It meanders through the scorching deserts of California, the dramatic Sierra Nevada, the volcanic landscape of Oregon and the vast forest of... more
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For more than three decades, apologist Ravi Zacharias has shared bits and pieces of his personal life and experience. In Walking from East to West, now in softcover, Zacharias invites you to follow him on a journey through his life: to see and smell the neighborhood in India where he grew up, to feel a mother’s love and the consternation of a harsh father … and the lure of a rebellious soul. In a crisis experience, Zacharias exchanged pantheism for monotheism, and meaninglessness for true fulfillment in Christ. He has traveled from the East to the West, and then back again to answer skeptics’... more
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This deluxe boxset includes COMPENDIUMS 1, 2 and 3--with new covers exclusive to this set--collecting the first 144 issue of the New York Times bestselling survival horror series.
This limited set also includes an exclusive, EXPANDED HERE'S NEGAN trade paperback, which now includes the previously uncollected origins of Michonne, Tyrese, the Governor and Morgan.
With over 3,300 pages of walkers, Saviors and a barbwire bat named Lucille, it's the most complete collection of THE WALKING DEAD ever assembled--just in time for WALKING DEAD DAY!
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This limited set also includes an exclusive, EXPANDED HERE'S NEGAN trade paperback, which now includes the previously uncollected origins of Michonne, Tyrese, the Governor and Morgan.
With over 3,300 pages of walkers, Saviors and a barbwire bat named Lucille, it's the most complete collection of THE WALKING DEAD ever assembled--just in time for WALKING DEAD DAY!
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An evocative meditation on the English landscape in wet weather by the acclaimed novelist and nature writer, Melissa Harrison.
Whenever rain falls, our countryside changes. Fields, farms, hills and hedgerows appear altered, the wildlife behaves differently, and over time the terrain itself is transformed.
In Rain, Melissa Harrison explores our relationship with the weather as she follows the course of four rain showers, in four seasons, across Wicken Fen, Shropshire, the Darent Valley and Dartmoor.
Blending these expeditions with reading, research,... more
Whenever rain falls, our countryside changes. Fields, farms, hills and hedgerows appear altered, the wildlife behaves differently, and over time the terrain itself is transformed.
In Rain, Melissa Harrison explores our relationship with the weather as she follows the course of four rain showers, in four seasons, across Wicken Fen, Shropshire, the Darent Valley and Dartmoor.
Blending these expeditions with reading, research,... more
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The harrowing true tale of seven escaped Soviet prisoners who desperately marched out of Siberia through China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and over the Himalayas to British India.
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A major Channel 4 series and a Sunday Times bestseller
His journey is 4,250 miles long.
He is walking every step of the way, camping in the wild, foraging for food, fending for himself against multiple dangers.
He is passing through rainforest, savannah, swamp, desert and lush delta oasis.
He will cross seven, very different countries.
No one has ever made this journey on foot.
In this detailed, thoughtful, inspiring and dramatic book, recounting Levison Wood's walk the length of the Nile, he will uncover the history of the Nile, yet through the people he meets... more
His journey is 4,250 miles long.
He is walking every step of the way, camping in the wild, foraging for food, fending for himself against multiple dangers.
He is passing through rainforest, savannah, swamp, desert and lush delta oasis.
He will cross seven, very different countries.
No one has ever made this journey on foot.
In this detailed, thoughtful, inspiring and dramatic book, recounting Levison Wood's walk the length of the Nile, he will uncover the history of the Nile, yet through the people he meets... more
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Gary Snyder has been a major cultural force in America for five decades. Future readers will come to see this book as one of the central texts on wilderness and the interaction of nature and culture. The nine essays in The Practice of the Wild reveal why Snyder has gone on to become one of America's cultural leaders, comprehending things about our world before they were ever discussed in public. With thoughts ranging from political and spiritual matters to those regarding the environment and the art of becoming native to this continent, this collection of essays, first published in 1990,... more
Don't have time to read the top Walking books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
71
A memoir of self-discovery and the dilemma of connection in our time, The Odd Woman and the City explores the rhythms, chance encounters, and ever-changing friendships of urban life that forge the sensibility of a fiercely independent woman who has lived out her conflicts, not her fantasies, in a city (New York) that has done the same. Running steadily through the book is Vivian Gornick's exchange of more than twenty years with Leonard, a gay man who is sophisticated about his own unhappiness, whose friendship has "shed more light on the mysterious nature of ordinary human relations... more
72
An exploration of walking and mapping as both form and content in art projects using old and new technologies, shoe leather and GPS.
From Guy Debord in the early 1950s to Richard Long, Janet Cardiff, and Esther Polak more recently, contemporary artists have returned again and again to the walking motif. Today, the convergence of global networks, online databases, and new tools for mobile mapping coincides with a resurgence of interest in walking as an art form. In Walking and Mapping, Karen O'Rourke explores a series of walking/mapping projects by contemporary... more
From Guy Debord in the early 1950s to Richard Long, Janet Cardiff, and Esther Polak more recently, contemporary artists have returned again and again to the walking motif. Today, the convergence of global networks, online databases, and new tools for mobile mapping coincides with a resurgence of interest in walking as an art form. In Walking and Mapping, Karen O'Rourke explores a series of walking/mapping projects by contemporary... more
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Along the streets of Manhattan, a young Nigerian doctor doing his residency wanders aimlessly. The walks meet a need for Julius: they are a release from the tightly regulated mental environment of work, and they give him the opportunity to process his relationships, his recent breakup with his girlfriend, his present, his past.
But it is not only a physical landscape he covers; Julius crisscrosses social territory as well, encountering people from different cultures and classes who will provide insight on his journey—which takes him to Brussels, to the Nigeria of his youth, and... more
But it is not only a physical landscape he covers; Julius crisscrosses social territory as well, encountering people from different cultures and classes who will provide insight on his journey—which takes him to Brussels, to the Nigeria of his youth, and... more
Leo HollisIt’s a series of walks around New York, and is one of the most powerful books on living in a city that I’ve read in a long time. (Source)
Robert EaglestoneIn the novel, migration is closely related to the theme of looking in the city, and of blindness. (Source)
Amy WaldmanIt’s about a solitary narrator who goes on walks through New York. 9/11 keeps resurfacing, indirectly and almost allusively, in really interesting ways. (Source)
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For readers of On Trails, this is an incisive, utterly engaging exploration of walking: how it is fundamental to our being human, how we've designed it out of our lives, and how it is essential that we reembrace it.
"I'm going for a walk." How often has this phrase been uttered by someone with a heart full of anger or sorrow? Or as an invitation, a precursor to a declaration of love? Our species and its predecessors have been bipedal walkers for at least six million years; by now, we take this seemingly arbitrary motion for granted. Yet how many of us still really walk in... more
"I'm going for a walk." How often has this phrase been uttered by someone with a heart full of anger or sorrow? Or as an invitation, a precursor to a declaration of love? Our species and its predecessors have been bipedal walkers for at least six million years; by now, we take this seemingly arbitrary motion for granted. Yet how many of us still really walk in... more
75
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury comes the second novel in the Angels Walking series about divine intervention and second chances—the dramatic story of a woman desperate to find deeper meaning in her life.
Growing up in a comfortable home, Mary Catherine wanted for nothing. Though she loves her wealthy parents, their lifestyle never appealed to her. Instead, Mary Catherine pursues meaning through charity work, giving away a part of herself but never giving away her heart.
Mary Catherine lives in Los Angeles with her roommate,... more
Growing up in a comfortable home, Mary Catherine wanted for nothing. Though she loves her wealthy parents, their lifestyle never appealed to her. Instead, Mary Catherine pursues meaning through charity work, giving away a part of herself but never giving away her heart.
Mary Catherine lives in Los Angeles with her roommate,... more
76
Here is an historic adventure of extraordinary power waiting to sweep you away to exotic lands as one of the most popular writers of our time conquers new storytelling worlds. Louis L'Amour has been best known for his ability to capture the spirit and drama of the authentic American West. Now he guides his readers to an even more distant frontier -- the enthralling lands of the 12th century. At the center of "The Walking Drum" is Kerbouchard, one of L'Amour's greatest heroes. Warrior, lover, scholar, Kerbouchard is a daring seeker of knowledge and fortune bound on a journey of enormous... more
Recommended by Marvin Liao, and 1 others. Marvin LiaoI'd say it was back during my teenage years at High School, feeling very down when my grandfather passed away & overall just feeling VERY lost direction wise in life. I retreated to my books & the ones that still stick with me are Louis L’Amour's "The Education of a Wandering Man" & his Medieval adventure "The Walking Drum". They entranced me & helped me to get my spirits back up. (Source)
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Do you feel manipulated, controlled, or lied to? Are you the focus of intense, violent, and irrational rages? Do you feel you are 'walking on eggshells' to avoid the next confrontation?
If the answer is 'yes,' someone you care about may have borderline personality disorder (BPD). Stop Walking on Eggshells has already helped nearly half a million people with friends and family members suffering from BPD understand this destructive disorder, set boundaries, and help their loved ones stop relying on dangerous BPD behaviors. This fully revised edition has been updated with the very...
more
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The story of a once vibrant, now vanished off-reservation Ojibwe village—and a vital chapter of the history of the North Shore
“We do this because telling where you are from is just as important as your name. It helps tie us together and gives us a strong and solid place to speak from. It is my hope that the stories of Chippewa City will be heard, shared, and remembered, and that the story of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Chippewa will continue to grow. By being a part of the living narrative, Bimaadizi Aadizookaan, together we can create a new story about... more
“We do this because telling where you are from is just as important as your name. It helps tie us together and gives us a strong and solid place to speak from. It is my hope that the stories of Chippewa City will be heard, shared, and remembered, and that the story of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Chippewa will continue to grow. By being a part of the living narrative, Bimaadizi Aadizookaan, together we can create a new story about... more
80
In this wordless picture book, a little girl collects wildflowers while her distracted father pays her little attention. Each flower becomes a gift, and whether the gift is noticed or ignored, both giver and recipient are transformed by their encounter. "Written" by award-winning poet JonArno Lawson and brought to life by illustrator Sydney Smith, Sidewalk Flowers is an ode to the importance of small things, small people, and small gestures. less
Don't have time to read the top Walking books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
81
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Songs of Jesus Timothy Keller comes the definitive Christian book on why bad things happen and how we should respond to them.
The question of why God would allow pain and suffering in the world has vexed believers and nonbelievers for millennia. Timothy Keller, whose books have sold millions of copies to both religious and secular readers, takes on this enduring issue and shows that there is meaning and reason behind our pain and suffering, making a forceful and ground-breaking case that this essential part of the... more
The question of why God would allow pain and suffering in the world has vexed believers and nonbelievers for millennia. Timothy Keller, whose books have sold millions of copies to both religious and secular readers, takes on this enduring issue and shows that there is meaning and reason behind our pain and suffering, making a forceful and ground-breaking case that this essential part of the... more
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The Bible plays a vital role in the life of the Catholic Church. In fact, we are called to immerse ourselves daily in the Scriptures. But many of us get lost when we actually dive into the Bible, and our time spent can be more frustrating than fruitful. We are reading a collection of writings drafted by an ancient people, in an ancient culture. But Scripture is nothing less than the Living Word of God, and it is meant just as much for us as for those who lived thousands of years ago.
In Walking with God, Dr. Tim Gray and Jeff Cavins unpack the central story woven throughout... more
In Walking with God, Dr. Tim Gray and Jeff Cavins unpack the central story woven throughout... more
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Life is fast, and I've found it's easy to confuse the miraculous for the mundane, so I'm slowing down, way down, in order to give my full presence to the extraordinary that infuses each moment and resides in every one of us.
At 23, Andrew Forsthoefel headed out the back door of his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, with a backpack, an audio recorder, his copies of Whitman and Rilke, and a sign that read "Walking to Listen." He had just graduated from Middlebury College and was ready to begin his adult life, but he didn't know how. So he decided to take a cross-country quest for... more
At 23, Andrew Forsthoefel headed out the back door of his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, with a backpack, an audio recorder, his copies of Whitman and Rilke, and a sign that read "Walking to Listen." He had just graduated from Middlebury College and was ready to begin his adult life, but he didn't know how. So he decided to take a cross-country quest for... more
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Inspired by the author's own pilgrimage of walking the legendary Camino de Santiago across Spain comes Rebirth, a novel of reconciliation and forgiveness.
After losing his estranged father, Amit wanders across Europe and embarks on the five-hundred and fifty mile Camino de Santiago to reconcile his inner conflict. It is on this path that he begins reflecting on relationships and forgiveness, to find answers we all seek. As Amit runs from his life, it soon becomes clear that it's impossible to run from himself. It is a universal pilgrimage, and a teaching-tale about love,... more
After losing his estranged father, Amit wanders across Europe and embarks on the five-hundred and fifty mile Camino de Santiago to reconcile his inner conflict. It is on this path that he begins reflecting on relationships and forgiveness, to find answers we all seek. As Amit runs from his life, it soon becomes clear that it's impossible to run from himself. It is a universal pilgrimage, and a teaching-tale about love,... more
Timothy FerrissIf you need an injection of wanderlust in your life, this debut novel by my friend Kamal Ravikant is your medicine. It motivated me to keep writing. (Source)
Ryan HolidayThere is a line in this book: If you're on the road, you're a pilgrim. This is a beautiful book for anyone who ever has or ever will make a journey--inward or outwards. (Source)
James AltucherThis book transported me into an adventure I hope I never leave. (Source)
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From #1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury comes the first in a brand-new series about second chances—a dramatic story about a washed up baseball player, the love he left behind, and the miracles that might save them both.
When former national baseball star Tyler Ames suffers a career-ending injury, all he can think about is putting his life back together the way it was before. He has lost everyone he loves on his way to the big leagues. Then just when things seem to be turning around, Tyler hits rock bottom. Across the country,... more
When former national baseball star Tyler Ames suffers a career-ending injury, all he can think about is putting his life back together the way it was before. He has lost everyone he loves on his way to the big leagues. Then just when things seem to be turning around, Tyler hits rock bottom. Across the country,... more
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The hilarious and loving sequel to a hilarious and loving classic of travel writing: Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson’s valentine to his adopted country of England
In 1995 Bill Bryson got into his car and took a weeks-long farewell motoring trip about England before moving his family back to the United States. The book about that trip, Notes from a Small Island, is uproarious and endlessly endearing, one of the most acute and affectionate portrayals of England in all its glorious eccentricity ever written. Two decades later, he set out again to rediscover... more
In 1995 Bill Bryson got into his car and took a weeks-long farewell motoring trip about England before moving his family back to the United States. The book about that trip, Notes from a Small Island, is uproarious and endlessly endearing, one of the most acute and affectionate portrayals of England in all its glorious eccentricity ever written. Two decades later, he set out again to rediscover... more
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"Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his." So begins Italo Calvino's compilation of fragmentary urban images. As Marco tells the khan about Armilla, which "has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be," the spider-web city of... more
Colin ThubronOh God. Well, officially it’s Marco Polo describing the cities of his travels to Kublai Khan. It’s been opined that every city he describes is a version of Venice, but I think that doesn’t really work. They seem to me to be marvellous imaginative fantasies, which sometimes reproduce states of mind. There are 40 or so cities described, all entirely imaginary I think, and that’s what’s so magical... (Source)
James MeekIt has different layers. The set-up is that Kublai Khan has conquered this vast empire; an empire so large that he, sitting at the centre of it, cannot know all the many parts of it. He can’t visit them, he can’t see them, and if he goes to one part all the other parts have changed. So he sits there at the centre of his empire and Marco Polo travels around and visits the various cities and comes... (Source)
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Six short stories and / or essays, extracted from The Crowded Dance of Modern Life (1993) and Selected Short Stories (1993). less
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Trying something new is never easy. Like walking, for instance. But aren't you sick of sitting on your bottom day in and day out? Hasn't lying around all the time become a little bit boring? This handy guide, both practical and inspirational, is here to help. With useful tips, common pitfalls, and Marla Frazee's adorable illustrations, this book is perfect for anyone--from a baby to a graduate to a grown-up--who's about to take a scary first step.
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After the death of his beloved wife, after the loss of his advertising business to his once-trusted partner, after bankruptcy forced him from his home, Alan Christoffersen embarked on a daring cross-country journey—a walk across America, from Seattle to Key West, with only the pack on his back. Through it all he learned life-changing lessons about love, forgiveness, and most of all, hope.
Now Alan must again return west to face yet another crisis, one that threatens to upend his world just as he had begun to heal from so much loss, leaving him unsure of whether he can reach the end... more
Now Alan must again return west to face yet another crisis, one that threatens to upend his world just as he had begun to heal from so much loss, leaving him unsure of whether he can reach the end... more
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In December 1933, an eighteen-year-old Patrick Leigh Fermor set out in a pair of hobnailed boots to chance and charm his way across Europe, 'like a tramp, a pilgrim or a wandering scholar,' on foot from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. The books he later wrote about this walk, A Time of Gifts (1977), Between the Woods and the Water (1986) and the posthumous The Broken Road (2013), are a half-remembered, half-reimagined journey through cultures now extinct, landscapes irrevocably altered by the traumas of the twentieth century. The brilliant bubble of his writing... more
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ALAN BOOTH'S CLASSIC OF MODERN TRAVEL WRITING
Traveling only along small back roads, Alan Booth traversed Japan's entire length on foot, from Soya at the country's northernmost tip, to Cape Sata in the extreme south, across three islands and some 2,000 miles of rural Japan. The Roads to Sata is his wry, witty, inimitable account of that prodigious trek.
Although he was a city person--he was brought up in London and spent most of his adult life in Tokyo--Booth had an extraordinary ability to capture the feel of rural Japan in his writing. Throughout his long and... more
Traveling only along small back roads, Alan Booth traversed Japan's entire length on foot, from Soya at the country's northernmost tip, to Cape Sata in the extreme south, across three islands and some 2,000 miles of rural Japan. The Roads to Sata is his wry, witty, inimitable account of that prodigious trek.
Although he was a city person--he was brought up in London and spent most of his adult life in Tokyo--Booth had an extraordinary ability to capture the feel of rural Japan in his writing. Throughout his long and... more
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'Enormously pleasurable, deeply moving. A bid to save our rich hoard of landscape language, and a blow struck for the power of a deep creative relationship to place' Financial Times
Landmarks is Robert Macfarlane's joyous meditation on words, landscape and the relationship between the two.
Words are grained into our landscapes, and landscapes are grained into our words. Landmarks is about the power of language to shape our sense of place. It is a field guide to the literature of nature, and a glossary containing thousands of... more
Landmarks is Robert Macfarlane's joyous meditation on words, landscape and the relationship between the two.
Words are grained into our landscapes, and landscapes are grained into our words. Landmarks is about the power of language to shape our sense of place. It is a field guide to the literature of nature, and a glossary containing thousands of... more
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from clearcutpress.com:
Poet and essayist Lisa Robertson has maintained the Office for Soft Architecture since 1996 as an apparatus for lyrical research focused primarily on Vancouver, B.C., with some excursions to other places. The Office constructs propositions and documents for the advancement of a natural history of civic surface. Three books of Robertson's poetry have been published: XEclogue (Tsunami Editions, 1993, reissued by New Star, 1999) Debbie: An Epic (1997, nominated for the Governor General's Award for Poetry) and The Weather (2001) (both co-published by New Star in... more
Poet and essayist Lisa Robertson has maintained the Office for Soft Architecture since 1996 as an apparatus for lyrical research focused primarily on Vancouver, B.C., with some excursions to other places. The Office constructs propositions and documents for the advancement of a natural history of civic surface. Three books of Robertson's poetry have been published: XEclogue (Tsunami Editions, 1993, reissued by New Star, 1999) Debbie: An Epic (1997, nominated for the Governor General's Award for Poetry) and The Weather (2001) (both co-published by New Star in... more
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At three o'clock one sleepless night, Colin Fletcher decided that what he must do was walk the length of California. He could only fumble with the supporting reasons, but he knew it was a hike he had to make.
Fletcher followed lonely stretches of the Colorado, crossed the Mojave, walked the trough of Death Valley and wandered through the High Sierras. Along the way he stumbled across an unspoiled ghost town and visited frontiers unseen by most Californians.
William Hogan with The San Francisco Chronicle writes that THE THOUSAND-MILE SUMMER "is one of the most remarkable outdoor...
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Holloway - a hollow way, a sunken path. A route that centuries of foot-fall, hoof-hit, wheel-roll and rain-run have harrowed deep down into bedrock.
In July 2005, Robert Macfarlane and Roger Deakin travelled to explore the holloways of South Dorset's sandstone. They found their way into a landscape of shadows, spectres & great strangeness.
Six years later, after Deakin's early death, Macfarlane returned to the holloway with the artist Stanley Donwood and writer Dan Richards. The book is about those journeys and that landscape. less
In July 2005, Robert Macfarlane and Roger Deakin travelled to explore the holloways of South Dorset's sandstone. They found their way into a landscape of shadows, spectres & great strangeness.
Six years later, after Deakin's early death, Macfarlane returned to the holloway with the artist Stanley Donwood and writer Dan Richards. The book is about those journeys and that landscape. less
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Michel de Certeau considers the uses to which social representation and modes of social behavior are put by individuals and groups, describing the tactics available to the common man for reclaiming his own autonomy from the all-pervasive forces of commerce, politics, and culture. In exploring the public meaning of ingeniously defended private meanings, de Certeau draws brilliantly on an immense theoretical literature in analytic philosophy, linguistics, sociology, semiology, and anthropology--to speak of an apposite use of imaginative literature. less
Don't have time to read the top Walking books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.