WALKING IN AMERICA

Thoreau looks beneath the clear waters of a stream and recreates the varied movements of a world few of us take time to see. Hawthorne is at once frustrated by the difficulty and moved by the pleasure of hiking in thick wilderness. The distinguished anthropologist Loren Eiseley is captured by the mystery of night, the strange brotherhood of man and dog, as they become sublunar creatures. There is also William Douglas scaling mountains, John James Audubon on the prairie, and a number of others. . . . Except for Colin Fletcher, one rarely comes across descriptions so illuminating and precise as these today. Not in fiction, certainly not in journalism. The reader will be impressed by how slowness of the walking stride affects the care, the pace, the leisure, and yes, the beauty, of this prose. Rare moments here; they make you feel you ought to be walking, relaxing, in the true meaning of the word.