The website Reading and Walking explores the interdisciplinary relationship between walking as a practice and the act of reading, examining how both activities engage with spatial and experiential dimensions. It features a range of essays, projects, and research that investigate walking as a method for reading environments, landscapes, and texts. This site presents walking not merely as physical movement, but as a cultural and intellectual practice that intersects with literary studies, geography, and art.
The content highlights theoretical frameworks and case studies that link walking with various modes of interpretation, emphasizing how movement through space influences perception and understanding. It includes contributions from scholars and practitioners who address themes such as psychogeography, urban exploration, and the role of walking in narrative structures. The site serves as a resource for those interested in the cultural geographies of walking and its implications for reading both cityscapes and written works.
Articles
43. Kit Dobson, Field Notes on Listening
I finished rereading Kit Dobson’s wonderful Field Notes on Listening on the flight (appropriately) to Calgary. I wrote about it last year, and I stand by everything I said then. In fact, I may have been stinting with my praise. I’ll be talking to Kit next Wednesday at walk-listen-create’s writer’s salon; you can join us … Continue reading 43. Kit Dobson, Field Notes on Listening →
• 41. Kit Dobson, Malled: Deciphering Shopping in Canada
I picked up a copy of Kit Dobson’s Malled: Deciphering Shopping in Canada because I’m interviewing him for a Walk-Listen-Create event in a couple of weeks (details about this event are here). Our conversation will focus on his book Field Notes on Listening (which I’ve blogged about here), but I wanted to prepare more thoroughly … Continue reading 41. Kit Dobson, Malled: Deciphering Shopping in Canada →
• 38. Rob Cowen, The North Road
When I read a review of Rob Cowen’s The North Road in The Guardian last winter, I knew I had to read it. A study of a highway? On foot? Yes! Of course I was interested. My first book, Walking the Bypass: Notes on Place from the Side of the Road, covers similar ground (forgive … Continue reading 38. Rob Cowen, The North Road →
• 36. Ariel Gordon, A Mudlarker’s Diary
Yes, I’m including chapbooks in my list. Why not? They’re short, but they have pages, covers, words. I like this one a lot: Ariel Gordon’s A Mudlarker’s Diary. It’s published by Pinhole Poetry, and it’s lovely as an object: there are tiny illustrations, it’s printed on nice stock, it’s sewn and not stapled. Nice. When … Continue reading 36. Ariel Gordon, A Mudlarker’s Diary →
• 35. Václav Cílek, To Breathe With Birds: A Book of Landscapes
I discovered Václav Cílek’s To Breathe With Birds: A Book of Landscapes through Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, where the last essay, “Bees of the Invisible,” is mentioned. I had read that essay, but not the rest of the book until the past week. What a strange book! Odd and oddly … Continue reading 35. Václav Cílek, To Breathe With Birds: A Book of Landscapes →
• 34. Matthew Anderson, Someone Else’s Saint: How a Scottish Pilgrimage Led to Nova Scotia
I’ve written about Matthew Anderson’s Someone Else’s Saint: How a Scottish Pilgrimage Led to Nova Scotia here before (about a year ago, in fact), and as preparation for the pilgrimage conference I mentioned in my last post, I reread it last week. I have more things to say about it (rereading typically reveals something new … Continue reading 34. Matthew Anderson, Someone Else’s Saint: How a Scottish Pilgrimage Led to Nova Scotia →
• 33. Robert Twigger, Walking the Great North Line: From Stonehenge to Lindisfarne to (kind of) Discover the Mysteries of Our Ancient Past
I wish I could remember who recommended Robert Twigger’s Walking the Great North Line to me. I’d like to thank whoever it was publicly, for two reasons: I hadn’t heard of it until that person told me about it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Twigger, the author of a dozen books, realized one day that … Continue reading 33. Robert Twigger, Walking the Great North Line: From Stonehenge to Lindisfarne to (kind of) Discover the Mysteries of Our Ancient Past →
• 30. Sarah Tolmie, All the Horses of Iceland
I’m not sure how All the Wild Horses of Iceland came into my possession—I suspect my friend Tanis MacDonald sent it to me in trade for some books about walking, because there’s a postcard from her tucked inside—but I’m glad it did, and that I read it near the end of my trip to England, … Continue reading 30. Sarah Tolmie, All the Horses of Iceland →
• 29. Simon Armitage, Walking Away: Further Travels with a Troubadour on England’s South West Coast Path
I read Simon Armitage’s Walking Away: Further Travels with a Troubadour on England’s South West Coast Path while walking along Hadrian’s Wall. Okay, not while trudging along beside rivers and roads or climbing steep hills (the poor Roman soldiers who hauled stones and mortar up those heights), but on the flight to England, on trains, … Continue reading 29. Simon Armitage, Walking Away: Further Travels with a Troubadour on England’s South West Coast Path →
• 27. Noreen Masud, A Flat Place: Moving through Empty Landscapes, Naming Complex Trauma
I brought Noreen Masud’s A Flat Place: Moving through Empty Landscapes, Naming Complex Trauma with me on this trip because a) it’s been on my desk for ages, and b) I live in a flat place (or so I thought, but not according to Masud’s use of that term), and c) I heard that it’s … Continue reading 27. Noreen Masud, A Flat Place: Moving through Empty Landscapes, Naming Complex Trauma →
• Dani Karavan, “Passatjes,” Portbou, Spain
Dani Karavan’s memorial to the philosopher Walter Benjamin, Passatjes, has been here in Portbou since 1994. Benjamin died here in 1940. Although he had a safe conduct pass that should’ve allowed him to cross Spain and enter Portugal, the police refused him entry. Because he was in poor health, he was allowed to remain in … Continue reading Dani Karavan, “Passatjes,” Portbou, Spain →
• 25. Tim Ingold, Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description
Tim Ingold’s Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description has been on my bookshelf for several years, one of those books I’ve bought with every intention of reading and hadn’t opened. In fact, I think I bought it because someone recalled the copy I had borrowed from the library, which was also sitting on … Continue reading 25. Tim Ingold, Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description →
• La Sagrada Familia and 24. Gillian Jerome, Nevertheless: Walking Poems
Here’s something new: a walk paired with a book. I’ve never done this before. La Familia Sagrada: does that count as a walk? Does it matter? I walked there; I walked around while I was there, listening to the audio guide; I’ll be walking back. Good enough for me. What an incredible cathedral; what a … Continue reading La Sagrada Familia and 24. Gillian Jerome, Nevertheless: Walking Poems →
• Walking the Bypass: Notes on Place from the Side of the Road wins a Saskatchewan Book Award!
Walking the Bypass: Notes on Place from the Side of the Road, took home the best nonfiction book award at last night’s Saskatchewan Book Awards. I was happy enough to be nominated; winning is incredible. Links to an online retailer in the UK and the US and Canadian distributors are on my other site, if … Continue reading Walking the Bypass: Notes on Place from the Side of the Road wins a Saskatchewan Book Award! →
• 21. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead
Theory of Water is an important, often beautiful book that outlines a Nishnaabeg theory of relationality, using water, or Nibi, in all of its forms (liquid, solid as ice or snow, gas) as its primary example. It thinks about the fundamental importance of connections between humans, and between humans and other creatures, all of whom have … Continue reading 21. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead →
• 19. Barbara Lounder, Becoming Corona Walker
I met Barbara Lounder at the Walking’s New Movements conference in Plymouth, UK, in the fall of 2019. She and her husband, Robert Bean, were very kind; they even invited me for dinner with Hamish Fulton, the renowned walking artist. Barbara and I have kept in touch since then, and when she let me know … Continue reading 19. Barbara Lounder, Becoming Corona Walker →
• 18. Ann de Forest, editor, Ways of Walking
I was on a Zoom call a couple of weeks ago, learning more about a walking workshop I’ll be part of in early May. I recognized the name of one of the other participants: Ann de Forest. Don’t I have a book by her? I asked myself. When the call ended, I went looking. Yes, … Continue reading 18. Ann de Forest, editor, Ways of Walking →
• 13. Anne Swannell, Mall
The honours student I’m co-supervising (and what a lucky introduction to supervising students!) likes Anne Swannell’s 1993 book of poetry, Mall. She’s interested in writing poems about places that aren’t particularly “poetic”–nice to look at, complete, obvious subjects for contemplation–and recommended Mall as an example of the kind of thing she would like to write. … Continue reading 13. Anne Swannell, Mall →
• 10. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies
One of the great things about my job during the past couple of years is that I’ve had the opportunity to teach Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies. It’s like no novel you’ve read before, because it’s a powerful anticolonial novel that decolonizes the genre. I get to reread this book every … Continue reading 10. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies →
• 4. Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
I read Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running 20 years ago, when it came out. I remember being fascinated by his account of running marathons and participating in triathlons, mostly because I’ve never been athletic and found it incredible that a man almost 20 years older than I was then … Continue reading 4. Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running →
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