10 inspiring books about walking

Ideal reading before a hike or if you just fancy an armchair adventure.

Hello! I’m Celine and I write about books, cooking, gardening and surviving life in the city, when you have a wild heart. Subscribe for free posts like this one, or join the community for other exclusive writing. Either way, thanks for your support!

Walking and reading. If you’re lucky enough to have access to both, you may agree that they are two of the finest things that life offers.

And, they’re kinda perfect when merged together.

With that in mind, here’s a list of inspiring memoirs, books on walking history and top-tier examples of nature writing, revolving around - you guessed it - the act of walking.

Calypso – David Sedaris

I’m a longtime reader of humourist David Sedaris’ books. He’s walked through cities around the world and sometimes writes about it in his memoirs.

Sedaris’ obsession with walking became next level when he acquired a FitBit.

The more he walked, the more the little device told him he could walk. The further he walked a day, the further he had to walk to keep up his ‘daily steps’.

Soon he is walking 25 miles a day. As he treads on through West Sussex, he discovers things he’s never noticed before.

Such as the masses of rubbish strewn around England, as people tend to treat the place like a tip.

So, be begins to pick up trash on his walk. He writes about the experience.

Hilarity follows.

Neon Pilgrim – Lisa Dempster

During her late-twenties, Lisa Dempster found herself in a crisis of sorts. Depressed and living with her mother, she has no idea of what she wants to do with her future.

So, she does what any rational person would do – packs up her life and flies out from Melbourne. She then spends almost three months walking the henro michi, a 1200 kilometre Buddhist pilgrimage through the mountains of Japan.

This is in the middle of summer, mind you, with next to no money, having never hiked a day in her life. Through this journey, Dempster turned her life around, ultimately finding her feet. She flies home, pens Neon Pilgrim and finds a career in Australia’s arts scene. Nothing like the transformative nature of a good walk!

In Praise of Paths: Walking through Time and Nature – Torbjørn Ekelund

An epilepsy diagnosis forced Torbjørn Ekelund out from behind the wheel of his car, to navigate the world on foot.

The more he walked, the more he came to love the very act itself.

He walks with shoes on, he plods along barefoot, he travels through forest and across urban streets. And within In Praise of Paths, Ekelund interweaves literature and the history of paths with his own tales from the trail.

Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory and Loss – Nick Gadd

Melbourne Circle is part history book, part travel memoir and part love letter from author Nick Gadd to his partner, Lynne.

Over a two year period, Nick and Lynne spend their weekends circling the city of Melbourne on foot. They start in the neighbourhood of Williamstown in Melbourne’s west, and end in Port Melbourne.

On this journey, they investigate secret places, uncover old buildings, and research ghost signs, discovering stories and characters from the city’s past.

Shortly after they complete their ‘circle’, Lynne passes away from cancer (no spoilers I promise, it’s on the blurb of the book). The essays in this book are addressed to Lynne, detailing their shared memories as Nick processes his grief.

However you never feel like you’re intruding as the reader, more so like you’re invited to share in this experience of ‘psychojogging‘ through marvellous Melbourne and peeling back its layers of history, in the process.

In Praise of Walking - Shane O’Mara

It’s one thing to marvel at where walking can take you, another to wonder at the science behind the act itself. This is precisely what neuroscientist Shane O’Mara does in his book, In Praise of Walking, examining this uniquely human skill.

Some may say ‘well yeah, it’s kinda obvious that walks, especially walks in nature are good for you’. And I would agree with this statement. Yet if you’re deeply interested in the science backing this, then this is indeed the book for you.

And a Dog Called Fig: Solitude, Connection, the Writing Life – Helen Humphreys

The exceptional cover of this book is what initially caught my eye. Isn’t it exquisite!

Canadian author Helen Humphreys, like many dog lovers, has been called to one breed of dog – the Vizsla, Hungarian ‘supermodels’ of the dog world. After her beloved dog Charlotte passes away, she seeks comfort in a puppy named Fig, despite heading towards the autumn years of life.

She reminisces about the dogs throughout her life and her own journey towards becoming a writer.

Walking is also a central focus of And a Dog Called Fig. Like many other writers and artistic sorts, Humphreys sees the act of movement as being central to the creative process. She shares tales of walks through rugged Canadian trails with her dogs and various adventures (and misadventures) taken together.

All in all, it’s a wonderful read for both walking enthusiasts and dog lovers.

Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London – Lauren Elkin

Let me ask you a question.

When you travel to a new city, do you immediately take to it by foot?

Do you walk along cobblestone streets, wondering what the lives were like of those who took this same path before you?

Then, you can happily call yourself either a Flâneur or in the feminine Flâneuse – which you won’t find in any dictionary, although it most certainly is a word that should exist.

Author Lauren Elkins considers herself a Flâneuse and feels far more at home in cities, seeing them as a setting which inspires thinking and creativity. She explores her adopted home city of Paris and other sprawling metropolises such as London, Tokyo, Venice and New York. Elkins consciously follows in the footsteps of notable women such as novelist George Sand, artist Sophie Calle and film-maker Agnès Varda.

If this book about walking proves anything, it’s that urban rambles are far from being a solely masculine pursuit. Long live the flâneuse!

To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface – Olivia Laing

In To the River, a relationship breakdown inspires one of my favourite authors Olivia Laing to don her walking shoes and journey along the River Ouse in the UK – the same river Virginia Woolf stepped into after filling her pockets with rocks in 1941.

As she walks, Laing muses upon life, believing that the river has the ability to give a sense of direction to those who have ‘lost faith with where they’re headed’.

She writes about the natural history of the area and the river’s link to writers who were influenced by it, such as Shakespeare, Iris Murdoch, Kenneth Grahame and Woolf.

It’s not the longest of walks that she has undertaken, as the Ouse is only 84km long. Yet, she takes her time, giving herself a week to complete the journey. She stays in small towns, drinks in pubs, listens to the chatter of those around her, but enjoys the solitude of the walk.

It allows her to reflect upon her background and current situation and examine the relationship we have with the land in modern life, generally one of discord.

This book is a gentle read, brimming with introspection. It is a homage to Woolf as a writer, the natural world and the healing nature of a good, long walk.

The Living Mountain – Nan Shepherd

The Living Mountain is a top example of how to do nature writing, the right way.

Shepherd writes about the Cairngorms, a mountain range in the eastern Highlands of Scotland, described by fellow nature writer Robert Macfarlane as Britain’s Arctic, a ‘low-slung wilderness of whale-backed hills and shattered cliffs’.

As a writer, Shepherd doesn’t walk this range to ‘bag Munros’, as so many other hikers are ought to do. She walks the Cairngorms to know the Cairngorms, and not much escapes her observant eye. She’s there, putting one foot forward through terrible winds, summer snow and Scotland’s famous precipitation.

Equally, she’s not writing to find herself, more to uncover the “essential nature” of the mountains and so, understand her place in them.

Landlines - Raynor Winn

Nature writer Raynor Winn has now penned three books about walking with her husband Moth, as he battles a degenerative neurological disease. Her latest, Landlines, details their most epic adventure to date, as they tackle the incredibly gruelling Cape Wrath Trail in remote Scotland.

Nature and the power of the path weave their magic and the two find themselves compelled to continue their journey, walking a thousand miles to the South-west Coast Path in Cornwall – where homeless and running out of money, they first discovered the healing power of a good walk.

Hopefully there’s a book or two on this list that piques your interest. And I must mention that some of my other favourite books about walking are memoirs written by fearless women.

We’ll meet again next thursday. ‘Til then, stay well and well-fed.

-Celine

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