The Lost Art of Walking

Walking was once the only way to get around but now we just walk to the bus stop, station or car. Or we walk as a lifestyle choice - trekking holidays, charity walks, urban explorations. Geoff Nicholson's The Lost Art of Walking brings pedestrianism back to the centre of life by musing on his own walks, reflecting on writers, artists, musicians and film makers who take walking as a subject, and by looking at some of the great walkers in history ­ the competitive, the adventurous, the philosophical, the merely eccentric.

The book takes us far further than most would consider walking distance, from the Oxford Street of de Quincey's London to the mean streets of Los Angeles, from the concrete canyons of New York City to the seven hills of Sheffield, by way of the British seaside and the deserts of America, Egypt and Australia. Along the way it describes encounters with nude walkers, labyrinth walkers, psychogeographers, among many others. The Lost Art of Walking is discursive, imaginative, full of insight and sometimes downright hilarious.