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A Walking Life: Reclaiming Our Health and Our Freedom One Step at a Time
For readers of On Trails , this is an incisive, utterly engaging exploration of 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 our everyday lives?
Driven by a combination of a car-centric culture and an insatiable thirst for productivity and efficiency, we're spending more time sedentary and alone than we ever have before. If bipedal walking is truly what makes our species human, as paleoanthropologists claim, what does it mean that we are designing walking right out of our lives? Antonia Malchik asks essential questions at the center of humanity's evolution and social Who gets to walk, and where? How did we lose the right to walk, and what implications does that have for the strength of our communities, the future of democracy, and the pervasive loneliness of individual lives?
The loss of walking as an individual and a community act has the potential to destroy our deepest spiritual connections, our democratic society, our neighborhoods, and our freedom. But we can change the course of our mobility. And we need to. Delving into a wealth of science, history, and anecdote -- from our deepest origins as hominins to our first steps as babies, to universal design and social infrastructure, A Walking Life shows exactly how walking is essential, how deeply reliant our brains and bodies are on this simple pedestrian act -- and how we can reclaim 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 our everyday lives?
Driven by a combination of a car-centric culture and an insatiable thirst for productivity and efficiency, we're spending more time sedentary and alone than we ever have before. If bipedal walking is truly what makes our species human, as paleoanthropologists claim, what does it mean that we are designing walking right out of our lives? Antonia Malchik asks essential questions at the center of humanity's evolution and social Who gets to walk, and where? How did we lose the right to walk, and what implications does that have for the strength of our communities, the future of democracy, and the pervasive loneliness of individual lives?
The loss of walking as an individual and a community act has the potential to destroy our deepest spiritual connections, our democratic society, our neighborhoods, and our freedom. But we can change the course of our mobility. And we need to. Delving into a wealth of science, history, and anecdote -- from our deepest origins as hominins to our first steps as babies, to universal design and social infrastructure, A Walking Life shows exactly how walking is essential, how deeply reliant our brains and bodies are on this simple pedestrian act -- and how we can reclaim it.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published May 7, 2019
52 people are currently reading
984 people want to read
About the author
Antonia Malchik
3 books21 followersAntonia Malchik has written essays and articles for Aeon, The Atlantic, Orion, GOOD, High Country News, and a variety of other publications. Her first book, A Walking Life, about the past and future of walking’s role in our shared humanity, is published by Da Capo Press, a division of Hachette. She lives in northwest Montana.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
May 5, 2020
One of my earlier memories was my dad taking me to the office of a city counselor when I was around eleven. We were proposing a walking path that would allow pedestrians to cross the street outside my neighborhood without having to go across a busy intersection. At the intersection in question, cars flew past, going fifty miles per hour (if they weren't speeding). The crosswalks rarely worked, and pedestrians rarely ever crossed at any major crosswalk in town, to the point where when I went to college and had to learn how to stop before the white lines that demarcated crosswalks instead of pulling up into them. Learning to actually watch for people who might be crossing the road was a rattling exercise. Understandably, my father didn't want me crossing at this intersection. Well, the councilman had already had a plan to put a path there, apparently, but the only catch was that it was slated to be paved seven years later at the earliest. I'd already have a car then - hopefully. If I didn't, there was no alternative. As you might imagine, around where I lived, there is no alternative to an automobile, not even your own two feet.
I walked to my grandmother's house once when I was a bit older. Six miles away. Not really that long a hike, although I've almost always been out of shape. I got honked at several times walking on dangerous parts of the side of the road; jeered at once. Pretty sure I got called a slur? Maybe I had something on me, but I never figured it out. I always just thought it was because I was walking, but could never figure that one out either. I was never particularly popular, but it was rare strangers yelled rude things at me unprovoked.
10 miles a day I walked the summer before my senior year of high school. I just walked around my neighborhood. I was obsessed with the exercise of it and any other aerobic exercise is torture to me, but I wasn't in it for the enjoyment or anything. It was addicting though. I was trying to walk my depression and anxiety off: I had just been diagnosed. I had just gotten on Prozac as well. Senior year was a hundred times better than anything before it. I thought it was the Prozac, but it wore off a while after I stopped walking and lifting weights. I never got it back with any combination of drugs.
There's my life story. I also read the book.
But really, it's related to all these things and more. Why are American cities so uniquely unfit for walking? How it relates to health issues... How the disappearance of walking takes away from our sense of community and contributes to lonliness... The relationship of walking and protest... How walking made humans human... The racism of suburbanization... and more.
Took me a while to read because I kept getting up to go for walks.
I walked to my grandmother's house once when I was a bit older. Six miles away. Not really that long a hike, although I've almost always been out of shape. I got honked at several times walking on dangerous parts of the side of the road; jeered at once. Pretty sure I got called a slur? Maybe I had something on me, but I never figured it out. I always just thought it was because I was walking, but could never figure that one out either. I was never particularly popular, but it was rare strangers yelled rude things at me unprovoked.
10 miles a day I walked the summer before my senior year of high school. I just walked around my neighborhood. I was obsessed with the exercise of it and any other aerobic exercise is torture to me, but I wasn't in it for the enjoyment or anything. It was addicting though. I was trying to walk my depression and anxiety off: I had just been diagnosed. I had just gotten on Prozac as well. Senior year was a hundred times better than anything before it. I thought it was the Prozac, but it wore off a while after I stopped walking and lifting weights. I never got it back with any combination of drugs.
There's my life story. I also read the book.
But really, it's related to all these things and more. Why are American cities so uniquely unfit for walking? How it relates to health issues... How the disappearance of walking takes away from our sense of community and contributes to lonliness... The relationship of walking and protest... How walking made humans human... The racism of suburbanization... and more.
Took me a while to read because I kept getting up to go for walks.
March 21, 2021
I went for a walk everytime I put this book down so in a way it is an extraordinary achievement😃
Lots of quotes and citations, well researched but also a good dose of personal anecdote.
Lots of quotes and citations, well researched but also a good dose of personal anecdote.
July 26, 2019
The ability to walk, to move through the world under our own power, is a gift. It is the foundation beneath essentially every advancement in human history. From the long view of evolution, it has been only the tiniest margin of time that, as a species, we were able to get anywhere at all without walking there first. Walking, our “ability to stride the earth with our strange, falling-forward-yet-never-quite-falling motion,” is an incredibly complex process most of us take completely for granted.
The physical workings are so intricate that engineers have thus far been almost completely incapable of making robots walk on two legs, at least not in any way that resembles what a human is capable of even as a toddler. In her new book, A Walking Life: Reclaiming Our Health and Freedom One Step at a Time, author Antonia Malchik takes us by the shoulders to remind us of this gift, and then reveal all the ways we are ceding this physical freedom in ways detrimental not only to our physical and mental health, but to how we relate to each other and the world around us.
A Walking Life covers significant territory in eight chapters, each cleverly titled with an adjective that may be applied to walking; “Toddle," for example, discusses the drive to learn to walk by humans from their earliest age. “March” describes the important connection to walking as a critical form of protest, and how governments and capitalist interests work to make such assemblies impossible. “Lurch” talks of our surrender of public walking space to automobile traffic and the racially-motivated decisions over what neighborhoods were destroyed to make way for more, and wider, roadways.
Deep scholarship — Malchik did her homework for this book—is alleviated by anecdotes supplied by people the author interviewed, as well as her own walking excursions, as best exemplified in the chapter “Meander.” For all the information, the reading is never dry. Malchik writes with a wonderful, accessible voice that I found humorous and inspiring. Every time I set the book aside, the first thing I wanted to do was get up and walk somewhere distant, and slowly.
Which leads me to a deep consideration of my own typical walking paths. I take my walking seriously. It even appears as an occupation on my business card. And yet, to truly enjoy a traverse, I have to drive somewhere first. I live just off a rural frontage road that separates me by at least 10 miles from anywhere remotely urban, yet to walk it is a dangerous risk. It is narrow, there is no shoulder, and traffic speeds by with little awareness that it shares the road with anything other than cars. Gigantic pickups ignoring the speed limit, drivers with eyes turned away and obviously distracted by devices, and other hurtling perils often make me uneasy to drive it, let alone expose myself afoot at its edges. Joggers and bicyclists are common in warmer weather, and I’m certain they all approach their recreation with trepidation.
The same can be said of my ambulations in downtown Missoula. On any afternoon it is a chaotic swirl of traffic, with bikes and pedestrians alike alert to dodge careless drivers. It is a miracle the carnage isn’t greater. I don’t know anyone who spends any real time downtown who doesn’t have a story about nearly being struck by an inattentive, and usually surly, driver. Cars bring out the worst of our behaviors, not the least of which is entitlement. But at least we downtown denizens can walk around. It is essentially impossible to do that anywhere else and still be engaged in any kind of community activity, popping in and out of shops, seeing and striking up conversations with old friends and acquaintances. These are the connections that make a city someplace anyone would want to live, connections that make cities livable.
A Walking Life recognizes that some of the territory we’ve given up isn’t coming back to us. But it isn’t too late to reclaim the freedom we can all enjoy if we begin to stand our ground when it comes to the protection of public, walkable places. It isn’t too late to rediscover this miracle we have carried with us for tens of thousands of years. “Through our feet,” Antonia Malchik tells us, “we are reminded that the planet is a whole thing, and that we are animals evolved to traverse it with a sure step and elongated spines.” It isn’t too late to remember.
The physical workings are so intricate that engineers have thus far been almost completely incapable of making robots walk on two legs, at least not in any way that resembles what a human is capable of even as a toddler. In her new book, A Walking Life: Reclaiming Our Health and Freedom One Step at a Time, author Antonia Malchik takes us by the shoulders to remind us of this gift, and then reveal all the ways we are ceding this physical freedom in ways detrimental not only to our physical and mental health, but to how we relate to each other and the world around us.
A Walking Life covers significant territory in eight chapters, each cleverly titled with an adjective that may be applied to walking; “Toddle," for example, discusses the drive to learn to walk by humans from their earliest age. “March” describes the important connection to walking as a critical form of protest, and how governments and capitalist interests work to make such assemblies impossible. “Lurch” talks of our surrender of public walking space to automobile traffic and the racially-motivated decisions over what neighborhoods were destroyed to make way for more, and wider, roadways.
Deep scholarship — Malchik did her homework for this book—is alleviated by anecdotes supplied by people the author interviewed, as well as her own walking excursions, as best exemplified in the chapter “Meander.” For all the information, the reading is never dry. Malchik writes with a wonderful, accessible voice that I found humorous and inspiring. Every time I set the book aside, the first thing I wanted to do was get up and walk somewhere distant, and slowly.
Which leads me to a deep consideration of my own typical walking paths. I take my walking seriously. It even appears as an occupation on my business card. And yet, to truly enjoy a traverse, I have to drive somewhere first. I live just off a rural frontage road that separates me by at least 10 miles from anywhere remotely urban, yet to walk it is a dangerous risk. It is narrow, there is no shoulder, and traffic speeds by with little awareness that it shares the road with anything other than cars. Gigantic pickups ignoring the speed limit, drivers with eyes turned away and obviously distracted by devices, and other hurtling perils often make me uneasy to drive it, let alone expose myself afoot at its edges. Joggers and bicyclists are common in warmer weather, and I’m certain they all approach their recreation with trepidation.
The same can be said of my ambulations in downtown Missoula. On any afternoon it is a chaotic swirl of traffic, with bikes and pedestrians alike alert to dodge careless drivers. It is a miracle the carnage isn’t greater. I don’t know anyone who spends any real time downtown who doesn’t have a story about nearly being struck by an inattentive, and usually surly, driver. Cars bring out the worst of our behaviors, not the least of which is entitlement. But at least we downtown denizens can walk around. It is essentially impossible to do that anywhere else and still be engaged in any kind of community activity, popping in and out of shops, seeing and striking up conversations with old friends and acquaintances. These are the connections that make a city someplace anyone would want to live, connections that make cities livable.
A Walking Life recognizes that some of the territory we’ve given up isn’t coming back to us. But it isn’t too late to reclaim the freedom we can all enjoy if we begin to stand our ground when it comes to the protection of public, walkable places. It isn’t too late to rediscover this miracle we have carried with us for tens of thousands of years. “Through our feet,” Antonia Malchik tells us, “we are reminded that the planet is a whole thing, and that we are animals evolved to traverse it with a sure step and elongated spines.” It isn’t too late to remember.
October 12, 2019
“We walk, and dams in our minds begin to crumble; our thoughts find new paths to explore; our prejudices and assumptions about ourselves, about other people, about the world around us, begin to erode, to shift, to blur. Our bodies become alive again and we learn, maybe for the first time since we were little children, what a giddy, vital, physical thing it is to be alive.”
Started off so strong: meditative, interesting, applicable. And Malchik really practices what she preaches, having moved her family out to Montana so that they could integrate walking into everyday life. But the book waffles for me, as she is very easily seduced by virtue-signaling, which marred the impact of it on the whole. Still, I appreciate books like these to encourage me to get up off my ass and work walking into my normal life.
May 8, 2021
Well written, but I didn't find the book compelling. I'm not sure the title about reclaiming health and freedom explains this book: that there is an entire chapter on the protest movement because it's an event in which people walk. Another chapter is about religious practices such as walking a labyrinth. For me, it was an ill-executed theme, despite the fact that there was interesting information.
July 3, 2019
This was nothing that I was expecting. A solid 4.5 stars. So well researched and covering everything including history, socio-economic studies, politics, access and inequity, culture, climate, I'm blown away. At times, it was almost too much information to digest, but my mind is swirling and if it wasn't nearly midnight, I'd be trying up my laces and clearing my mind with a long walk.
August 29, 2019
Exercise sharpens the mind. I read this entire book while walking. I found that I retained more of the book while plodding about. Warning: Make sure there are no animals nor their toys underfoot.
The author provided a wealth of information on the many forms, history, and insights of walking as detailed below. The book opened with exhausted Syrian war refugees walking into Nickelsdorf, Austria after finally being allowed entry. Many were too impatient to wait for the buses and thus marched from Budapest, Hungary. Children have to learn to walk but it quickly becomes so ingrained that we give little thought to our gait. A community's walkability connects us to others providing a social network. Marches create interconnectedness, awareness, and civil engagement. Examples are Gandhi's salt mine march; Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech; 1965 Selma, Alabama civil rights marches; the 2016 Standing Rock, North Dakota protest against the oil pipeline being built through Sioux's sacred burial grounds and disrupting the clean water source, and the more recent Women's marches in the U.S. I was disturbed to learn of a proposed law providing legal immunity if a driver runs over protestors blocking a public road or highway especially when there is little accessible public walking areas.
We have become a car-centric society. A mother was charged in her son's death for jaywalking despite the driver's reckless driving record. She received a harsher sentence than the driver. Fortunately, it was overturned. The author wrote that four million acres in the the United States have been developed for roadways and about a billion parking spaces. Cars represent freedom in the U.S.. However, the freedom to walk has been designed out of our lives as roads are planned for cars, not people. Diabetes, especially Type 2, obesity, and heart disease are on a rise. Only 1/3rd of U.S. children get the recommended 60 minutes of active play. 3/4s of British children spend less time outside than prison inmates. Parents cite traffic dangers, unsafe neighborhoods, and access to a walkable community. A Danish study found that children who walked or biked to school performed better and were more attentive for the first four hours. Air pollution has been tentatively linked to obesity, lung capacity, asthma, dementia, and Alzheimer's. "Walking reduces anxiety, staves off Alzheimer's. It alleviates depression and worry, energizes creative thinking." Walking engages the senses.
Many people and groups are advocating and/or using walking for their causes - Katherine Davies for the Syrian immigrants, GirlTrek to get African American women walking and to break the effects of intergenerational trauma, America Walks for urban pedestrian safety and transportation planning designs, Warrior Hike for PTSD military vets, and Walk2Connect. People walk to remember, protest, commemorate, exercise, transport, heal, celebrate, raise money, and travel. Religious pilgrimages abound. Examples of all of these are Kenken Buddhist walking, Camino de Santiago, March of Dimes, literature tours, a pub crawl, the Beatles tour in Liverpool, Colorado's annual Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing/Run/Walk commemorating the survivors and victims of the 1864 massacre, and Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. Tibetans walk in a circle as a form of prayer known as the Kara circuit. I learned of Forest Bathing (hanging out between trees), which produces phytoncide that lowers blood pressure and reduces stress. Nature walks can be calming and lead to creativity. Hiking can be a form of meditation. Walk to be free.
Antonia Malchik wrote that with 26 bones in the foot, many of us have foot problems. She quoted, "Start with longing" for those with disabilities, who cannot and want to walk. Walking leads to independence. Universal designs are needed to make areas and public transportation more accessible to those with disabilities. If you fix the most harmful and most vulnerable, everyone benefits. Haptics (mimics touch) and prosthetics are helping those with disabilities.
In 2013, "the oldest fossilized hominin footprints found outside of Africa" dating 850,000 to 1 million years ago were discovered in Happisburgh when England was still connected to Europe. She was fascinated to find that the preserved steps meandered. She quoted essayist and author Robert Macfarlane, "A walk is only a step away from a story and every path tells." Trails are formed by those who walked on them before us. Look at the Oregon Trail, the Trail of Tears, Peru's Nazca Line, labyrinths, and the Mayan sacbeds.
I was fascinated with her research and observations and recommend this book to anyone interested in walking.
The author provided a wealth of information on the many forms, history, and insights of walking as detailed below. The book opened with exhausted Syrian war refugees walking into Nickelsdorf, Austria after finally being allowed entry. Many were too impatient to wait for the buses and thus marched from Budapest, Hungary. Children have to learn to walk but it quickly becomes so ingrained that we give little thought to our gait. A community's walkability connects us to others providing a social network. Marches create interconnectedness, awareness, and civil engagement. Examples are Gandhi's salt mine march; Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech; 1965 Selma, Alabama civil rights marches; the 2016 Standing Rock, North Dakota protest against the oil pipeline being built through Sioux's sacred burial grounds and disrupting the clean water source, and the more recent Women's marches in the U.S. I was disturbed to learn of a proposed law providing legal immunity if a driver runs over protestors blocking a public road or highway especially when there is little accessible public walking areas.
We have become a car-centric society. A mother was charged in her son's death for jaywalking despite the driver's reckless driving record. She received a harsher sentence than the driver. Fortunately, it was overturned. The author wrote that four million acres in the the United States have been developed for roadways and about a billion parking spaces. Cars represent freedom in the U.S.. However, the freedom to walk has been designed out of our lives as roads are planned for cars, not people. Diabetes, especially Type 2, obesity, and heart disease are on a rise. Only 1/3rd of U.S. children get the recommended 60 minutes of active play. 3/4s of British children spend less time outside than prison inmates. Parents cite traffic dangers, unsafe neighborhoods, and access to a walkable community. A Danish study found that children who walked or biked to school performed better and were more attentive for the first four hours. Air pollution has been tentatively linked to obesity, lung capacity, asthma, dementia, and Alzheimer's. "Walking reduces anxiety, staves off Alzheimer's. It alleviates depression and worry, energizes creative thinking." Walking engages the senses.
Many people and groups are advocating and/or using walking for their causes - Katherine Davies for the Syrian immigrants, GirlTrek to get African American women walking and to break the effects of intergenerational trauma, America Walks for urban pedestrian safety and transportation planning designs, Warrior Hike for PTSD military vets, and Walk2Connect. People walk to remember, protest, commemorate, exercise, transport, heal, celebrate, raise money, and travel. Religious pilgrimages abound. Examples of all of these are Kenken Buddhist walking, Camino de Santiago, March of Dimes, literature tours, a pub crawl, the Beatles tour in Liverpool, Colorado's annual Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing/Run/Walk commemorating the survivors and victims of the 1864 massacre, and Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. Tibetans walk in a circle as a form of prayer known as the Kara circuit. I learned of Forest Bathing (hanging out between trees), which produces phytoncide that lowers blood pressure and reduces stress. Nature walks can be calming and lead to creativity. Hiking can be a form of meditation. Walk to be free.
Antonia Malchik wrote that with 26 bones in the foot, many of us have foot problems. She quoted, "Start with longing" for those with disabilities, who cannot and want to walk. Walking leads to independence. Universal designs are needed to make areas and public transportation more accessible to those with disabilities. If you fix the most harmful and most vulnerable, everyone benefits. Haptics (mimics touch) and prosthetics are helping those with disabilities.
In 2013, "the oldest fossilized hominin footprints found outside of Africa" dating 850,000 to 1 million years ago were discovered in Happisburgh when England was still connected to Europe. She was fascinated to find that the preserved steps meandered. She quoted essayist and author Robert Macfarlane, "A walk is only a step away from a story and every path tells." Trails are formed by those who walked on them before us. Look at the Oregon Trail, the Trail of Tears, Peru's Nazca Line, labyrinths, and the Mayan sacbeds.
I was fascinated with her research and observations and recommend this book to anyone interested in walking.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 7, 2020
I am a walker. Whenever walking is a feasible choice and sometimes when it is not, I walk. Every day I take a break from work in the afternoon for a walk. I love walking in the hills above my Los Angeles home. And I loved Thoreau's essay on walking, which was filled with heart, soul and meditative consideration. When I picked up this book, I think that I was hoping for a more modern take on Thoreau's essay, but that isn't what I got.
Instead, what we get from Malchik is a typical modern non-fiction book that explores in detail something with which we are already familiar, providng new details and perspectives, a bit like "Cod" and "Salt." Malchik discusses walking from a variety of perspectives -- physiological, psychological, developmental, social and political. The beginning of the book is very oriented to facts and science. I kept wanting more heart and soul, looking for the Thoreau in it, which was so conspicuously absent. Finally in the second half, she gets into describing walking as a spiritual practice, but it's way too clinical and not sufficiently soulful in its presentation. Also in the second half we get a few personal anecdotes from the author's own walking life, but it was just a tease. I wanted more.
Clearly Malchik shares my love of walking. With that strong bond she should have been able to connect with me more. She didn't.
Instead, what we get from Malchik is a typical modern non-fiction book that explores in detail something with which we are already familiar, providng new details and perspectives, a bit like "Cod" and "Salt." Malchik discusses walking from a variety of perspectives -- physiological, psychological, developmental, social and political. The beginning of the book is very oriented to facts and science. I kept wanting more heart and soul, looking for the Thoreau in it, which was so conspicuously absent. Finally in the second half, she gets into describing walking as a spiritual practice, but it's way too clinical and not sufficiently soulful in its presentation. Also in the second half we get a few personal anecdotes from the author's own walking life, but it was just a tease. I wanted more.
Clearly Malchik shares my love of walking. With that strong bond she should have been able to connect with me more. She didn't.
January 28, 2020
A bit less about walking and a bit more of a diatribe about cars and roads than I was expecting.
February 25, 2021
I would bet that my own health problems stem primarily from my sedentariness and I live in a place where walking paths and accessible spaces for movement are abundant. I really like how the author considers the impact of social status on the ability of people to use their own two legs to get around. Lots of Denver references.
November 28, 2021
Really enjoyed this book about walking and all
Of the layers of of walking. I enjoyed thinking about the actual physical
Act of walking- we as man learning to walk on a bipedal level. Really enjoyed the cultural. Social Justice, climate Justice components related to walking. Very thought provoking book
Of the layers of of walking. I enjoyed thinking about the actual physical
Act of walking- we as man learning to walk on a bipedal level. Really enjoyed the cultural. Social Justice, climate Justice components related to walking. Very thought provoking book
Want to read
May 2, 2019Literary Hub, May 1, 2019
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November 9, 2022Overall the book was not my favorite. I'm a big fan of walking and walkability so the over all message was one I can get behind. However, the book was maybe too philosophical and non consecutive for me. Eventually I started skimming sections when I saw the word "Hominid" since her endless musing about human's first ancestors and their potential thoughts and feelings about walking just did not interest me. Her more current anecdotes and presentation of facts about walkablity were a bit more interesting, but the book kept jumping around and it never felt like anything was in a logical order.
February 7, 2021
An inspiring and challenging book that calls us back to our most natural of all means of transportation: walking. Throughout the pandemic, I’ve spent more time walking than any other year of my adult life. This book helped me name why walking makes me feel grounded and connected in the midst of chaos. A great read!
September 14, 2019
Why we as humans walk.
December 18, 2019
I really wanted to like this more than I did, but it just didn't work for me.
August 26, 2019
I just finished listening to this book. It certainly was not what I expected. Without reading what it was about beforehand, that is no surprise. I guess I may have been looking for something more spiritual, more meditative. But I am not unhappy at all about it.
Malchik presents the reader with what I can only describe as her Manifesto on walking in all its facets. Each chapter presents an experience or an aspect from a direction one might not have considered before. A topic such as a city's or rural area's walkability, the dividing lines that create inaccessibility, the history of modes of transportation and the affect on foot traffic, laws, dangers, the social strata affecting who gets sidewalks, parks, or trees, the locations of bus stops, barriers created by uncrossable thoroughfares, and even racial inequalities. Many of these topics one might never notice until confronted by an impossible situation.
Have you ever been in the position of needing to get from the bookstore on the north side of the street to the grocery directly opposite and unable to figure out how to reach your goal without a car? Or lived across a busy street and needed the bus stop on the other side when you had an armload of groceries and two toddlers in tow? What would you do? I have been faced with the first situation. I was healthy enough that the distance and the low barrier across the middle of the road would not be an obstacle, but add cars rushing along? Then what? You look for a crosswalk only to discover that if there even is an intersection, it's almost a half mile away, without a crosswalk or a walklight. Yes. Many times. Usually when I was in an unfamiliar location. Even my own city has a few intersections that require good timing, an able body and crosswalks only on one side of the street, but not the side you are on. How did this happen? Malchik gives us the cause. We so prized our ability to get places quickly in our vehicles, that we created what are, in effect, laws against pedestrians. Not so much to protect them, as to keep them away. These laws, generally anti jaywalking, are almost as old as the first automobile.
What about our highway system? Do you recognize that the highway planners chose low income or neighborhoods of people of color over the wealthy white neighborhoods when the maps were drawn. Once vibrant places became deserts with no way to get to stores or former neighbors' homes. This blight can still be seen today in inner city areas DECADES later!
Do you live in a rural area? Sounds pleasant. But can you safely walk along your roads? There are no sidewalks and no barriers to cars. You can find yourself on a narrow path along those frequently 55 MPH roads, hemmed in by a ditch and the need for speed.
She also talks about distraction from smartphones. Both drivers and pedestrians create dangerous situations.
Citing laws, cases, statistics, walking studies, actually walking the areas in question, Malchik points out a huge problem for our health, our community, and the pollution problems of trying to walk these areas. Particularly heart rending is a legal case of a woman with a job, small children, several required bus changes, a day care destination and a job destination. One of her children died in a hit and run while she was trying to cross a busy street, by a man with several hit and runs on his record who admitted to drinking and using painkillers. Guess who was charged with vehicular homicide? Not the man.
This eye opening book caused me to pull over to use my cellphone last week. Made me grateful that I currently have no mobility barriers, and am in an area where there are at least some sidewalks and proven health-giving trees.
There is a great deal more in this book than my review can cover. It would be good for many to read it and look at their own area situations to address the problem. It is a must for city planners.
Malchik presents the reader with what I can only describe as her Manifesto on walking in all its facets. Each chapter presents an experience or an aspect from a direction one might not have considered before. A topic such as a city's or rural area's walkability, the dividing lines that create inaccessibility, the history of modes of transportation and the affect on foot traffic, laws, dangers, the social strata affecting who gets sidewalks, parks, or trees, the locations of bus stops, barriers created by uncrossable thoroughfares, and even racial inequalities. Many of these topics one might never notice until confronted by an impossible situation.
Have you ever been in the position of needing to get from the bookstore on the north side of the street to the grocery directly opposite and unable to figure out how to reach your goal without a car? Or lived across a busy street and needed the bus stop on the other side when you had an armload of groceries and two toddlers in tow? What would you do? I have been faced with the first situation. I was healthy enough that the distance and the low barrier across the middle of the road would not be an obstacle, but add cars rushing along? Then what? You look for a crosswalk only to discover that if there even is an intersection, it's almost a half mile away, without a crosswalk or a walklight. Yes. Many times. Usually when I was in an unfamiliar location. Even my own city has a few intersections that require good timing, an able body and crosswalks only on one side of the street, but not the side you are on. How did this happen? Malchik gives us the cause. We so prized our ability to get places quickly in our vehicles, that we created what are, in effect, laws against pedestrians. Not so much to protect them, as to keep them away. These laws, generally anti jaywalking, are almost as old as the first automobile.
What about our highway system? Do you recognize that the highway planners chose low income or neighborhoods of people of color over the wealthy white neighborhoods when the maps were drawn. Once vibrant places became deserts with no way to get to stores or former neighbors' homes. This blight can still be seen today in inner city areas DECADES later!
Do you live in a rural area? Sounds pleasant. But can you safely walk along your roads? There are no sidewalks and no barriers to cars. You can find yourself on a narrow path along those frequently 55 MPH roads, hemmed in by a ditch and the need for speed.
She also talks about distraction from smartphones. Both drivers and pedestrians create dangerous situations.
Citing laws, cases, statistics, walking studies, actually walking the areas in question, Malchik points out a huge problem for our health, our community, and the pollution problems of trying to walk these areas. Particularly heart rending is a legal case of a woman with a job, small children, several required bus changes, a day care destination and a job destination. One of her children died in a hit and run while she was trying to cross a busy street, by a man with several hit and runs on his record who admitted to drinking and using painkillers. Guess who was charged with vehicular homicide? Not the man.
This eye opening book caused me to pull over to use my cellphone last week. Made me grateful that I currently have no mobility barriers, and am in an area where there are at least some sidewalks and proven health-giving trees.
There is a great deal more in this book than my review can cover. It would be good for many to read it and look at their own area situations to address the problem. It is a must for city planners.
February 12, 2023
"A writing is finished not when you can't put anything more in, but when you can't take anything more out."
These wise words were shared with me by a great writer, but that was not Ms. Antonia Malchik, who is a good writer, but not a great writer, or anyway is a good writer who lacked a good editor. Malchik puts way too much in, and takes nothing out. Delete 50 or 60 pages of needless digressions, tedious personal anecdotes, overloaded details of scientific experiments, and now useless to us formerly-current events, and this would have been a great book. Look, for one blustering example, at the four pages of Acknowledgments. The author lists almost two-hundred names, including many of her high school teachers, and every member of her local writing group. Too much! She even credits her publisher's undeserving editor, who was obviously asleep at the keyboard. Fearful of not crediting and therefore offending anyone she knew, she instead offends her readers.
Throughout the book, to spare myself the near endless ennui, I was compelled to skim passages and to skip entire pages. Too late now for me, but I wish I had skipped the entire penultimate chapter, aptly titled “Meander,” in which the author, in pursuit of prehistoric footprints, aimlessly meanders in one chapter-long personal anecdote across the British and Montanan landscapes to drive home the point about the inadequacies of public transportation, inadequacies that she had already documented earlier in the book. As though this were news that no one else knew.
Still, many phrases and sentences shine with poetic beauty and profundity. The pages relevant to the benefits, the mechanics, the paleontology, the philosophy, and even the politics of walking are worth your purchase and your browsing of this book. Just don't read the whole dang thing.
These wise words were shared with me by a great writer, but that was not Ms. Antonia Malchik, who is a good writer, but not a great writer, or anyway is a good writer who lacked a good editor. Malchik puts way too much in, and takes nothing out. Delete 50 or 60 pages of needless digressions, tedious personal anecdotes, overloaded details of scientific experiments, and now useless to us formerly-current events, and this would have been a great book. Look, for one blustering example, at the four pages of Acknowledgments. The author lists almost two-hundred names, including many of her high school teachers, and every member of her local writing group. Too much! She even credits her publisher's undeserving editor, who was obviously asleep at the keyboard. Fearful of not crediting and therefore offending anyone she knew, she instead offends her readers.
Throughout the book, to spare myself the near endless ennui, I was compelled to skim passages and to skip entire pages. Too late now for me, but I wish I had skipped the entire penultimate chapter, aptly titled “Meander,” in which the author, in pursuit of prehistoric footprints, aimlessly meanders in one chapter-long personal anecdote across the British and Montanan landscapes to drive home the point about the inadequacies of public transportation, inadequacies that she had already documented earlier in the book. As though this were news that no one else knew.
Still, many phrases and sentences shine with poetic beauty and profundity. The pages relevant to the benefits, the mechanics, the paleontology, the philosophy, and even the politics of walking are worth your purchase and your browsing of this book. Just don't read the whole dang thing.
July 2, 2019
How to shelve this book? It is about walking, yes, but walking in relation to evolution, religion (pilgrimages, labyrinth walking), city design, neighborhoods, development of cars, health, social structures, the loneliest so pervasive today, social isolation, just to name a few of the topics that walking intersects with.
One of our librarians has a knack for selecting books that are provocative and reflective. This is one of them. Chapters have whimsical names: the First Step, Toddle, Lurch, Meander, Stride, for example. What is fascinating is how AM brings together all of these topics I list in paragraph 1 (and other topics). She has the ability to describe things vividly, such as her trip to see where footprints of +10,000 years ago were found in Britain and upon seeing the casts notes that many of them are definitely small children running and toddling around just like small children today. Her description of what it really is to walk a step--which we rarely if ever think about since our First Step--is vivid and points out just how difficult it is for us to do at first; she then segues into the pros and cons of artificial lower limbs today. One vignette that will last in my mind is the small Syrian boy immigrant who goes to a cathedral labyrinth and walks it dragging a heavy sack behind him, for spiritual renewal (I hope he got some) after all the horrible things he experienced in his flight.
Take a chance with this book. I love to walk and do so every where I can in my quite walkable small town (fortunately; and I gather people have noticed how I walk so much). This book will help me walk more introspectively and thoughtfully more of the time. I will reread it certainly.
One of our librarians has a knack for selecting books that are provocative and reflective. This is one of them. Chapters have whimsical names: the First Step, Toddle, Lurch, Meander, Stride, for example. What is fascinating is how AM brings together all of these topics I list in paragraph 1 (and other topics). She has the ability to describe things vividly, such as her trip to see where footprints of +10,000 years ago were found in Britain and upon seeing the casts notes that many of them are definitely small children running and toddling around just like small children today. Her description of what it really is to walk a step--which we rarely if ever think about since our First Step--is vivid and points out just how difficult it is for us to do at first; she then segues into the pros and cons of artificial lower limbs today. One vignette that will last in my mind is the small Syrian boy immigrant who goes to a cathedral labyrinth and walks it dragging a heavy sack behind him, for spiritual renewal (I hope he got some) after all the horrible things he experienced in his flight.
Take a chance with this book. I love to walk and do so every where I can in my quite walkable small town (fortunately; and I gather people have noticed how I walk so much). This book will help me walk more introspectively and thoughtfully more of the time. I will reread it certainly.
January 10, 2023
I have very little privilege to check, but when I have to check it, it's because I have always been a strong walker. I love to walk, and get my walking abilities from all sides of the family, including my maternal great-grandmother who walked from Germany to the Middle East in the 1920s, and my parental grandmother who regularly walked through the Arizona deserts from one Tohono O'Odham community to another. I've had this book on my list for a few years, and finally decided to read it.
It was ok, but there was a lot to it that wasn't great. There is a lot of able-ism in this book, even when the author tries very, very hard not to. Even though she speaks with a lot of people who can't walk for different reasons, the assumption always comes back to the fact that these people really want to walk, and that because they can't walk they are somehow always struggling to be complete people. Also, her information about walkable cities has been more thoughtfully and coherently covered by authors like Jeff Speck, and Taras Grescoe (whose fantastic book, Straphanger is not even mentioned in the bibliography).
But there were some great moments in the book. Information about her father walking the city of Leningrad with his friends during the Cold War, and the last chapter that featured walking as prayer or meditation were beautifully written. If you are like me, a strong and enthusiastic walker, there will be a lot in this book that is good, but I couldn't stop thinking of all the people who don't walk for many reasons and how they would feel about some of the assumptions of this book.
It was ok, but there was a lot to it that wasn't great. There is a lot of able-ism in this book, even when the author tries very, very hard not to. Even though she speaks with a lot of people who can't walk for different reasons, the assumption always comes back to the fact that these people really want to walk, and that because they can't walk they are somehow always struggling to be complete people. Also, her information about walkable cities has been more thoughtfully and coherently covered by authors like Jeff Speck, and Taras Grescoe (whose fantastic book, Straphanger is not even mentioned in the bibliography).
But there were some great moments in the book. Information about her father walking the city of Leningrad with his friends during the Cold War, and the last chapter that featured walking as prayer or meditation were beautifully written. If you are like me, a strong and enthusiastic walker, there will be a lot in this book that is good, but I couldn't stop thinking of all the people who don't walk for many reasons and how they would feel about some of the assumptions of this book.
September 4, 2019
Super impressed by this book. A carefully considered, impressively researched portrait of walking as it relates to political protests, environmental justice, refugees, racial disparities in health, urban planning, disabilities, religion -- in addition to the predictable topics of wellness, evolution, and commentary on fast-paced modern life.
Malchik is deeply nuanced in subject matter and words in a way uncommon to general nonfiction books. Here's an example passage, that shows her bite: "Why don't existing strategies improve the health of Black women? From weight-loss regimens to government interventions, nothing was shifting the needle of this community's health, and the reason, Garrison said, is that those strategies refuse to acknowledge the weight of existing racism and its history, the weight of trauma and sorrow that most African American women carry in their bodies, passed down from their ancestors. Without acknowledging systemic racism--from overt racism experienced every day at work and in schools and in our public spaces to practices like redlining and the smashing of African American communities to build highways serving white suburbs in the mid-1900s--none of these weight-loss strategies will have any effect because they're not addressing the underlying problem" (168). Is this news? Of course not. But I appreciate her frankness about racism, making it impossible to look away.
I think everyone can learn something from this book, and look at the world+walking differently after reading it.
Malchik is deeply nuanced in subject matter and words in a way uncommon to general nonfiction books. Here's an example passage, that shows her bite: "Why don't existing strategies improve the health of Black women? From weight-loss regimens to government interventions, nothing was shifting the needle of this community's health, and the reason, Garrison said, is that those strategies refuse to acknowledge the weight of existing racism and its history, the weight of trauma and sorrow that most African American women carry in their bodies, passed down from their ancestors. Without acknowledging systemic racism--from overt racism experienced every day at work and in schools and in our public spaces to practices like redlining and the smashing of African American communities to build highways serving white suburbs in the mid-1900s--none of these weight-loss strategies will have any effect because they're not addressing the underlying problem" (168). Is this news? Of course not. But I appreciate her frankness about racism, making it impossible to look away.
I think everyone can learn something from this book, and look at the world+walking differently after reading it.
March 24, 2024
Probably 3.5?
The good:
+ it made me want to walk more
+ made me take note of and be grateful for all the places I can walk to in my area
+ I learned some interesting history (particularly about the evolution of cars/city infrastructures/ politics)
+ I enjoyed most of her personal anecdotes around her own walking life
+ It covers a lot of issues—from history/science of walking to the rise of the automobile to spiritual walks and pilgrimages, access to walking as a social justice issue, and more.
The not as good:
-parts were dense and dry. This may be in part because I was listening to the audio, which doesn't lend itself to the use of so many citations/quotations. I like that she was well-researched, but it didn't flow well in the audio.
-some fatphobic language/assumptions when discussing health.
-sometimes felt like too much information about certain topics and then just skimming others (seemed at times like it was trying to cover too many bases).
-it was published in 2019, so in chapters regarding social justice/protest and community, it felt like there was a gaping hole because nothing of the events of 2020 were mentioned (obviously). This isn't the author's fault, of course, but it does feel incomplete when reading with the knowledge and experience we have now.
The good:
+ it made me want to walk more
+ made me take note of and be grateful for all the places I can walk to in my area
+ I learned some interesting history (particularly about the evolution of cars/city infrastructures/ politics)
+ I enjoyed most of her personal anecdotes around her own walking life
+ It covers a lot of issues—from history/science of walking to the rise of the automobile to spiritual walks and pilgrimages, access to walking as a social justice issue, and more.
The not as good:
-parts were dense and dry. This may be in part because I was listening to the audio, which doesn't lend itself to the use of so many citations/quotations. I like that she was well-researched, but it didn't flow well in the audio.
-some fatphobic language/assumptions when discussing health.
-sometimes felt like too much information about certain topics and then just skimming others (seemed at times like it was trying to cover too many bases).
-it was published in 2019, so in chapters regarding social justice/protest and community, it felt like there was a gaping hole because nothing of the events of 2020 were mentioned (obviously). This isn't the author's fault, of course, but it does feel incomplete when reading with the knowledge and experience we have now.
February 27, 2023
Much of this book creates a better sense of the longing humans are born with to walk.
“Through our feet, we are reminded that the planet is a whole thing, and that we are animals evolved to traverse it with a sure step and elongated spines.”
Malchik embeds many human experiences of walking. These evocative accounts make room for contemplating nuance and complexity and ever-evolving purposes that we all may have for walking.
Sometimes it is to flee war and oppose oppression. Sometimes it is to achieve our sense of independence after physical injury. Sometimes it is a wondrous spiritual pursuit.
Regardless of our present day, Malchik continues to present questions of a common history for us all. For our bodies, our existance and our evolution.
The ways this book presents walking compelled me to consider walking as a human right. Facing numerous ways society may lead us away from walking, we must all to some degree actively reclaim walking as part of our being.
“Keep walking, even if you’ve nowhere to go. Step in a puddle again. Watch the ripples you’re capable of creating. Leave a story in your footprints.”
This is a book that will put readers in touch with gratitude for bipedal walking.
“Through our feet, we are reminded that the planet is a whole thing, and that we are animals evolved to traverse it with a sure step and elongated spines.”
Malchik embeds many human experiences of walking. These evocative accounts make room for contemplating nuance and complexity and ever-evolving purposes that we all may have for walking.
Sometimes it is to flee war and oppose oppression. Sometimes it is to achieve our sense of independence after physical injury. Sometimes it is a wondrous spiritual pursuit.
Regardless of our present day, Malchik continues to present questions of a common history for us all. For our bodies, our existance and our evolution.
The ways this book presents walking compelled me to consider walking as a human right. Facing numerous ways society may lead us away from walking, we must all to some degree actively reclaim walking as part of our being.
“Keep walking, even if you’ve nowhere to go. Step in a puddle again. Watch the ripples you’re capable of creating. Leave a story in your footprints.”
This is a book that will put readers in touch with gratitude for bipedal walking.
March 17, 2022
Well-written but not exactly inspiring. The focus is broad but tends to focus on what is wrong throughout the world as it pertains to walking.
This is largely about infrastructure, how there are too few sidewalks, safety concerns, huge intersections, people with disabilities, parents scared for their child's safety, and more. It talks about how the auto industry just about insured that we would become dependent on cars. The author praises those who walk in protest or to draw awareness to a societal issue such as the treatment of refugees. She acknowledges/bemoans the sedentary nature of technology and office work and video games.
The most uplifting part is the rather brief "Invitation" at the conclusion. This entire book seems to be saying "Wake Up" and push back against all the forces that encourage us to be lonely and sedentary. Some good support for these concerns, but would have preferred the concerns balanced better with positive "can-do" inclusions.
This is largely about infrastructure, how there are too few sidewalks, safety concerns, huge intersections, people with disabilities, parents scared for their child's safety, and more. It talks about how the auto industry just about insured that we would become dependent on cars. The author praises those who walk in protest or to draw awareness to a societal issue such as the treatment of refugees. She acknowledges/bemoans the sedentary nature of technology and office work and video games.
The most uplifting part is the rather brief "Invitation" at the conclusion. This entire book seems to be saying "Wake Up" and push back against all the forces that encourage us to be lonely and sedentary. Some good support for these concerns, but would have preferred the concerns balanced better with positive "can-do" inclusions.
October 29, 2019
This book is about so much more than walking. Walking is merely the thread Antonia Malchik follows as she explores lines of inquiry from personal family history to human evolution, from equity and disability considerations to democracy and freedom, creativity to wanderlust, micro to macro and back again, and we want to accompany her, fascinated at where she might lead us next. Malchik is a deep thinker and beautiful writer who made me see my neighborhood, my town, and all my habitual roads and pathways with new eyes. This whole book is like a walking meditation, as Malchik puts it, a “practice of being present” to the gift, the privilege, and the human right to move through the world with our bodies.
April 21, 2020
Interesting ideas that I had never considered about walking. I enjoyed the considerations about how walking may have affected our evolution. Also something I never considered was how cars have taken over our cities and made the enjoyment of walking very difficult and sometimes downright dangerous.
The one thing that made reading this book more difficult, was the way she seemed to wander from one topic to another, sometimes with no real connection from one chapter to the next.
Even given the lack of connections, the book was interesting.
The one thing that made reading this book more difficult, was the way she seemed to wander from one topic to another, sometimes with no real connection from one chapter to the next.
Even given the lack of connections, the book was interesting.
March 4, 2021
A well-researched and -reasoned book about the importance of walking in the lives of human beings. Collectively, we have damaged our lives and our planet by relying on cars to get us around and building our cities and spaces to cater to cars rather than feet. This book shows the import of walking on our mental, physical, and even health, how economic and racial disparity are worsened by the lack of walkable spaces, and how disability presents such an obstacle in even walkable places like NYC. Recommended.
July 6, 2019
Being most interested in the physiological/benefits-to-mental-health parts of the book, I did a fair amount of skimming, but this was a good read, with plenty of tidbits I shared with whoever happened to be nearby. I was also inspired to walk to a meeting I had a couple miles away, because it was a Saturday morning, and that meant there was time enough.
Also compelling was the discussion of how neighborhood walkability is too often something reserved for the privileged among us.
Also compelling was the discussion of how neighborhood walkability is too often something reserved for the privileged among us.
January 27, 2023
Overall I did enjoy this read! I thought it was insightful and a great reminder how simple something as walking can really benefit us as an individual and as a community. I did enjoy some chapters more than others but overall if you are interested in walking and looking at walking from not just a health perspective but from a social, societal, religious, etc. than this book would be right up your alley!
April 4, 2024
This was not the book I thought it was going to be. In this short book there are entire chapters dedicated to protests, pilgrimages, and the automobile. A very interesting read, don't get me wrong, but if you think you're going to read a book about the benefits of walking... you are, but not in how you think. Some of it was a bit drawn out, like the chapter on veterans and the different walks they do, etc. Overall, I would recommend it because I did learn a lot!
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