i really enjoyed this, my first foray into book-length lit crit. i kind of wish it had just been the lit crit parts because the sudden new architectural theory right at the end was definitely related thematically but felt textually like it was pulled from a different book. still really good though! ( )

A collection of essays by an english literature academic loosely concerned with walking and its relationship to, well just about everything. Particularly liked the one on 'Where does the body begin?' The answer being the big toe, being essential to bipedalism, the consequent ability of humans to use tools and therefore to develop a bigger brain. The big toe - the reason for human civilisation. ( )

I really wanted to like this more. It is a worthy and well-researched piece of work, which explores various guises of the flaneur throughout literature, but it reads as a very dry academic text, with copious footnotes and that air of ivory-tower floweriness of language.

A book like this needs, for a general audience, some interaction between the author, the subject and the reader - which does come, but frustratingly only in the final chapter when the author loosens the bonds of academic strictures and dares to insert himself into the text, as he himself walks the city. This is what was needed throughout; other successful books which manage this transition from dry academic tome to accessible general text should have provided a template for what would have worked.

There is no denying the research and intelligence behind the book. It just needed a good editor to request a re-write for a more general audience. This book, I fear, is destined for the dusty shelves of libraries and the studies of academics only. Which is a shame. ( )