These Books Were Made for Walking

Despite having over thirty commonly used synonyms in the English language, walking, opens a new window (or strolling, marching, wandering, hiking, roaming, sauntering, meandering, moseying—just to name a few) is often considered a mundane activity. Yet walking has endless purpose and is deeply tied to exploration. In the works below, walking transcends the repetitive motion of putting one foot in front of the other to become a process of discovery and transformation. For those who walk and those who experience mobility through adaptive means, these picks can enlighten us to how moving our bodies through space helps deepen our connection to the world, ourselves and the spaces in between.

In Open City, opens a new window, Teju Cole's protagonist, Julius, uses his long walks through New York City to think about the city's history, as well as his identity as both a Nigerian immigrant and budding psychiatrist. Moving through the city becomes an intimate, philosophical way for Julius to digest complex emotions about race, belonging and memory. His experience shows how walking can be a method of grappling with one's sense of self and place in the world.

Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust: A History of Walking, opens a new window takes the idea of walking in a broader, historical context to focus on how it has shaped human culture, philosophy and consciousness. Like Teju Cole, Solnit traces the origins of walking as a form of both wandering and meditation, showing how the act has been central to how we understand the world and ourselves. Her work emphasizes that walking is not just about getting from point A to point B. It’s about the mental and emotional journey that happens along the way and how wandering opens up opportunities for reflection, desire, chance and discovery.

Like Solnit, Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City, opens a new window takes a more emotional view of walking. Laing’s solitary walks through Manhattan become a way of combatting loneliness and searching for meaning. She finds answers in the spaces she moves through, where internal monologue and the urban landscape intersect. Laing’s narrative shows how traversing a city can be an intimate conversation with its streets and a way to work through isolation by connecting with the context of the spaces we exist in. Walking, in this sense, becomes a way of navigating not just physical environments but emotional ones.

In Meek's Cutoff, opens a new window, Kelly Reichardt’s film about pioneers on the Oregon Trail, walking is a symbol of survival, endurance and uncertainty. The group’s trek through the wilderness is fraught with doubt, as they struggle to find direction and meaning in their quest for a new life. Unlike traditional tales of pioneers overcoming challenges, Meek’s Cutoff presents walking as a tense, unpredictable endeavor where the destination is unclear. Here, trekking mirrors the human struggle for purpose and clarity in life, showing that moving through difficult terrain can also reflect the internal experience of dealing with life's ambiguities.

Lastly, the narrator’s meandering walks through Paris in André Breton's Nadja, opens a new window turn common spaces into dream-like realms. As a key figure in the Situationist art movement of the 1950s, which sought to liberate people from the constraints of everyday life by encouraging instinctive and playful exploration of urban environments, Breton invites readers to embrace the irrational and unexpected influences on our lives. He inspired many other walking artists, like Francis Alÿs, opens a new window who famously orchestrated a group of five-hundred volunteers to move a Peruvian sand dune by inching it forward through coordinated walking, turning the simple act of walking into a collective, transformative endeavor.

With the warmer months inching closer, let one of these works inspire your next outing and to take one of Chicago's many unique walking tours! For example, Midwest Society of Acoustic Ecology's Summer Soundwalk Series, opens a new window is a great way to take your walks to an artful level. The 2025 schedule will be available on their website next month.