A review by bookwoods
Wanderers: A History of Women Walking by Kerri Andrews

2.0

I probably should have known that this book wouldn’t be to my taste, but I really wanted to believe I could adore historical biographies. Because that’s what Wanderers essentially is: a collection of biographies about women who walked and wrote, the first feeding the latter. Kerri Andrews has chosen people from the 18th all the way to the 21st century. Most names sounded familiar, but there wasn’t anyone I had actually read something from. And I’m sorry to say Wanderers didn’t make me want to change that. 

The writing, although concise and fluent, felt boring and filled to the brim with quotes. Just so many quotes. Andrews ends each chapter with her own summaries and experiences trying to retrace the writers’ steps in some way, yet I didn’t care. And I guess that’s the main issue. Maybe I feel slightly more inspired to take walks, but the central message of how instrumental walking is for writers, men and women alike, didn’t offer anything particularly new. 

“For some women walkers, the pedestrian body becomes a conduit through which past, present and future are connected. The physical self is a medium through which time, stories, lives, all intersect.”