This is the blog for my new book The Lost Art of Walking, a personal wander (stroll? meander? peregrination?) through the history, science, literature, photography, even performance art, of walking.

A couple of early reviews - and I'm told that early reviews mean nothing - seemed to find the book curiously benign. Kirkus Reviews used the word "amiable." Publishers Weekly said "genial."

This came as a bit of a shock. I'd rather fancied myself as the mad dog of pedestrianism, snarling and howling as I strode manically down mean streets and alleyways of perambulation. Still, trust the tale not the teller, I suppose.

The fiercest walker I've ever met is Bruce Gilden, a New York street photography. He not only seems to regard walking as a struggle and a conflict, but sometimes as hand to hand combat. Perhaps he's the walker I'd like to be. There's an interview with Bruce in the book.

It contains a consideration of street photography, and about the way that street photographers do a great deal of walking and inevitably photograph a great number of walkers. I make no claims for myself as a photographer, but I did take a lot of photographs as wrote this book. They're available here on Youtube as a plug-cum-trailer for The Lost Art of Walking.

View more information on The Lost Art of Walking

Geoff Nicholson, The Lost Art of Walking, Pedestrianism, Riverhead, Penguin Books