Wanderlust: A History of Walking

The name Wanderlust is becoming increasingly popular nowadays. There is a film soon to be released  with Jenifer Aniston in the lead, it is the name of a travel magazine, and it is the name of a festival for yoga teachers. Wanderlust is also the very catchy title of a book by Rebecca Solnit on the history of walking. The association of walking with thinking has been a centuries-old impression yet the scholarly research digging deep into this association is still not substantial in number. There awaits a lot to be discovered, uncovered, studied, analysed out there. Rebecca Solnit's book is taking up one dimension, the history of walking, and takes the reader by the hand back to the Peripatetic Philosophers in the Ancient Greece. The book then travels in time and space to Rousseau's walks, Kant's walks, and Kierkegaard's walks... Solnit draws from the inspiration she gets from her personal walks and sets out to search the famous philosophers that used to go out for a walk. She also brings up some theoretical writings on walking from the Ancient Greece and Medieval Europe to the Enlightenment and contemporary world. Well aware of the resistant and transgressive nature of walking, Solnit produces a very insightful account which every walker needs to enhance the pleasure s/he derives from spontaneous walks. 

Wanderlust: A History of Walking comes also as a lovely edition from Penguin. The dimensions of the book is unusal, and the paper quality of the cover is very soft and silky. It is enjoyable to touch, to hold in your hand while reading. It is not only a very gripping but also a very haptic read! The volume is further enriched by quotes on walking that flow through the entire book in the form of "subtitles". Further enhancing the feeling of free-form reading (sometimes you cannot help but gaze at the sentence below the page), the quotes actually increase the suspended appetite of the main text. If you enjoy taking spontaneous walks, this book is a must read to feel that you are not alone in a world webbed with highways and high technology.

PS: With this book, I will start giving star ratings for books so that you know how I feel about the book as a whole and whether I recommend it or not.  

Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Rebecca Solnit

Penguin Books, 2001

5 STARS