Wanderers

Reviews / Votes

Through the life stories of 10 wandering women, Andrews explores "the previously unacknowledged breadth, depth and distinctiveness" of their writing, and reveals a rich "female tradition of walking" . . . For Linda Cracknell, who lives in the Tayside town of Aberfeldy, both writing and walking are empathetic activities. The paths she walks "ring with the voices of earlier women-walkers who passed there". After writing this book, Andrews too finds her paths "companioned" (to use Nan Shepherd's word) by other women-wanderers, part of a rich cultural heritage that her fascinating research has revealed. * The Guardian * The history of walking has always been women's history, Kerri Andrews declares, even if the weight of man-made literature suggests otherwise. Wanderers is about 10 women "who have found walking essential to their sense of themselves as women, writers and people". -- Michael Kerr * The Sunday Telegraph * Andrews features a wonderful cast of characters . . . It still feels somehow radical to talk about women ramblers and flaneuses; the sensitive, well-researched portraits in Wanderers rightly begin to redress the balance. * The Idler * Think of famous walkers and its men like Wordsworth and Keats who likely spring to mind. But that's only half the story: here Andrews fills in the blanks with a history of women walkers of the last 300 years. * Country Walking Magazine * The reader of Kerri Andrew's Wanderers: A History of Women Walking laces her boots and strikes out with ten women who walked, wrote and wrote about walking . . . there are some lovely vignettes . . . The book is at its best when imaginatively recreating the sole-tiring, soul-stirring, stomping simplicity of walking alone. Then the reader shares the rapture of Virginia Woolf's cry: 'Oh the joy of walking!' * Laura Freeman, The Critic * This book not only brings to light some women who walked and have been hidden in the shadows, but inspires us to consider our own reasons for walking and what we get from it. Kerri brings her own experiences and connections with the women she introduces in the book into each chapter, and her own love of walking shines through . . . If I hadn't read this book already, it would be on my wish list this Christmas! * Scottish Mountaineer * The written works of these women walker-authors offer new insights into the role of walking in human creativity. They also demonstrate that while women at times walked for the same purposes as men, the experience of being on foot has often meant markedly different things for them. As Andrews makes clear, the burdens placed on women throughout the centuries have never stopped them from walking. * Geographical Magazine * Kerri Andrews's Wanderers [is] an attempt to redress the masculine bias of our literary history of walking by highlighting the achievements of ten notable female walker-writers . . . what Andrews provides - and it is no mean feat - are inspiring pen-portraits of ten remarkable women, intercut with reminiscences of the author's own exploits as either a novice or experienced walker . . . Wanderers is a delightful, impassioned study of female walkers, which should significantly raise the profile of a number of its subjects . . . this well-researched and highly readable book [carries] forward the vital project of writing women fully into our literary history of walking. -- Robin Jarvis * Women's Writing * In Wanderers, the reader finds him or herself in excellent company. We accompany literary legends such as Virginia Woolf and Dorothy Wordsworth as well as less well known, but equally exceptional, figures such as Ellen Weeton and Sarah Stoddard Hazlitt as they stride out through the landscapes that inspired and sustained them . . . Although Wanderers does show its readers that there have, historically, been barriers to women's freedom to walk, its great achievement is to remind us of the prize worth challenging convention and facing those risks, that the freedom to walk is. * The Pilgrim * Historically, women were consigned to domestic tasks that hemmed them in. For a woman to walk as freely as a man was a radical act and fraught with potential danger. Here Andrews turns a scholarly eye on ten women throughout history, most of whom lived in Great Britain, who walked or, rather, hiked long distances . . . Andrews interacts with each walker by either tracing similar paths herself or reflecting upon those paths' significance. * Booklist * In giving voice to female walker-writers, Wanderers fills out some big blanks in the history of walking, from an 18th Century pioneer to walkers of the present day . . . In Andrews' sensitive portrayals there's a sense of identification with her subjects. This may be as close as you'll get to the inside of Nan Shepherd's head - and that seems like an interesting place to be. * 'Top Picks of 2020' UKHillwalking.com * A wild portrayal of the passion and spirit of female walkers and the deep sense of "knowing" that they found along the path. * Raynor Winn, author of 'The Salt Path' * For centuries, women have walked for freedom, pleasure, identity and solace: they have walked-for-their-lives. Kerri Andrews's remarkable history of these wanderers is timely and exciting. Enchanted by Andrews's accessible, engaging, rigorous work, I opened this book and instantly found that I was part of a conversation I didn't want to leave. A dazzling, inspirational history. * Helen Mort, author of 'No Map Could Show Them' *