Overview

Is walking a subversive act? For the authors of WAYS OF WALKING, it can be. Some walk across forbidden lines, violating laws to seek freedom. Some walk to bear witness to social injustice. Still others engage in a subtler subversion, violating the social norm of rapid, powered transportation to notice what fast travelers miss. WAYS OF WALKING brings together 26 writers who reflect on walks they have taken and what they have discovered along the way. Through walking, these authors become more attuned to the places they move across, more attentive to intricate ecologies and layered histories. and more connected to themselves as well. Their small steps of rebellion lead to unexpected discoveries.

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9781735558523

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Put one foot in front of the other. These 26 thoughtful, troubled and inspired writers have done just that, and they've brought back rich insights that remind us that walking is the most literary of exercises. WAYS OF WALKING is really about the myriad ways we experience the world when we encounter it intimately, without the mediating devices of modern life. -- Inga Saffron, Philadelphia Inquirer, author of BECOMING PHILADELPHIA This rich, readerly collection of essays on the multiple possibilities open to us as members of a species constitutively shaped by its ability to walk on two feet is, simply, inspiring. Its writers vividly record the travails and the triumphs of their travels on foot, in ways that force us to reconceptualise our relationship both to the environments we inhabit and to one another. The book is a moving, endlessly stimulating invitation to walk, to think, and to rethink walking. --Matthew Beaumont Matthew Beaumont, author of THE WALKER: ON FINDING AND LOSING YOURSELF IN THE MODERN CITY Walking's pleasures are infinite, and those in WAYS OF WALKING hardly less so. Editor Ann de Forest has assembled an eloquent team of rambling writers who offer readers intriguing discoveries at every turn of the page. The twenty-six essays assembled here contain fresh takes on city streets and foggy mountaintops, haunting riversides and dicey edgelands. Often, the celebrated wonders of walking stand aside to let danger, disability, and discouragement have their say, too. One high point is a self-doubting pilgrimage through library vaults to commune with the climate-controlled notebooks of Henry David Thoreau. In 1851 Thoreau advised himself, 'Probe the universe in a myriad points.' That could be the epigraph for this rewarding volume. Whether you take your steps in ten-league boots or bedroom slippers, you will find insight and inspiration a-plenty in these stimulating pages. -- William Sharpe, Barnard College, author of THE ART OF WALKING

Walking's pleasures are infinite, and those in WAYS OF WALKING hardly less so. Editor Ann de Forest has assembled an eloquent team of rambling writers who offer readers intriguing discoveries at every turn of the page. The twenty-six essays assembled here contain fresh takes on city streets and foggy mountaintops, haunting riversides and dicey edgelands. Often, the celebrated wonders of walking stand aside to let danger, disability, and discouragement have their say, too. One high point is a self-doubting pilgrimage through library vaults to commune with the climate-controlled notebooks of Henry David Thoreau. In 1851 Thoreau advised himself, 'Probe the universe in a myriad points.' That could be the epigraph for this rewarding volume. Whether you take your steps in ten-league boots or bedroom slippers, you will find insight and inspiration a-plenty in these stimulating pages. -- William Sharpe, Barnard College, author of THE ART OF WALKING Put one foot in front of the other. These 26 thoughtful, troubled and inspired writers have done just that, and they've brought back rich insights that remind us that walking is the most literary of exercises. WAYS OF WALKING is really about the myriad ways we experience the world when we encounter it intimately, without the mediating devices of modern life. -- Inga Saffron, Philadelphia Inquirer, author of BECOMING PHILADELPHIA This rich, readerly collection of essays on the multiple possibilities open to us as members of a species constitutively shaped by its ability to walk on two feet is, simply, inspiring. Its writers vividly record the travails and the triumphs of their travels on foot, in ways that force us to reconceptualise our relationship both to the environments we inhabit and to one another. The book is a moving, endlessly stimulating invitation to walk, to think, and to rethink walking. -- Matthew Beaumont -- Matthew Beaumont, author of THE WALKER: ON FINDING AND LOSING YOURSELF IN THE MODERN CITY

Author Information

A California native living and writing in fairly happy exile in Philadelphia for more than three decades, Ann de Forest writes about the urban landscape and the resonance of place. She is a contributing writer for HIDDEN CITY DAILY and editor of EXTANT MAGAZINE. Her poems, short stories, and essays have appeared in COAL HILL REVIEW, NOCTUA REVIEW, UNBROKEN, HOTEL AMERIKA, THE JOURNAL, PIF, CLEAVER MAGAZINE, and THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF PHILADELPHIA.

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