The Walker: On Finding and Losing Yourself In The Modern City
Matthew BeaumontFrom Charles Dicken's insomniac night rambles to wandering through the faceless, windswept monuments of the neoliberal city, the act of walking is one of escape, self-discovery, disappearances & potential revolution.
Pacing stride for stride alongside such literary amblers and thinkers as Edgar Allen Poe, Andrew Breton, H G Wells, Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys & Ray Bradbury, Matthew Beaumont explores the relationship between the metropolis & its pedestrian life.
He asks can you get lost in a crowd? It is polite to stare at people walking past on the street? What differentiates the city of daylight and the nocturnal metropolis? What connects walking, philosophy & the big toe? Can we save the city - or ourselves - by taking the pavement?
A literary history of walking From Dickens to Zizek