In Praise of Paths
Walking through Time and Nature
Published on 5. May 2020
248 pages
978-1-77164-496-9 (ISBN)
Description
?What [Ekelund is] addressing is the intention to walk one's way to meaning: the walk as spiritual exercise, a kind of vision quest... A key strategy for finding ourselves, then, is to first get lost.??The New York Times Book Review
An ode to paths and the journeys we take through nature, as told by a gifted writer who stopped driving and rediscovered the joys of traveling by foot.
Torbjørn Ekelund started to walk?everywhere?after an epilepsy diagnosis affected his ability to drive. The more he ventured out, the more he came to love the act of walking, and an interest in paths emerged. In this poignant, meandering book, Ekelund interweaves the literature and history of paths with his own stories from the trail. As he walks with shoes on and barefoot, through forest creeks and across urban streets, he contemplates the early tracks made by ancient snails and traces the wanderings of Romantic poets, amongst other musings. If we still ?understand ourselves in relation to the landscape,? Ekelund asks, then what do we lose in an era of car travel and navigation apps? And what will we gain from taking to paths once again?
?A charming read, celebrating the relationship between humans and their bodies, their landscapes, and one another.?
?The Washington Post
This book was made possible in part thanks to generous support from NORLA.
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Other editions
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Book
06/2020
Greystone Books,Canada
€24.00
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Persons
Torbjørn Ekelund is a writer, author, and co-founder of Harvest, an online magazine documenting wilderness adventures, environmental issues, and our relationship with nature. He lives in Oslo, Norway.
Geoff Nicholson is the author of multiple books including The Lost Art of Walking. His writings have appeared in the New York Times and the Guardian, amongst others, and he is a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Content
- Cover
- Title Page
- Contents
- Dedication
- Foreword
- The beginning
- The measure of all paths
- Part I
- Humans have always wandered
- Hiking trails
- The trek over the high mountain
- Part II
- The path as I remember it
- Into the wild
- Part III
- Tracks
- Mental detours
- Inner landscapes
- Part IV
- Back where I started
- You can't walk the same path twice
- Discovery at the journey's end
- On writing this book
- Gratitude
- Notes
- Sources
- Copyright Page
