52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time

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The book, 52 Ways to Walk by Annabel Streets, carries the subtitle “The surprising science of walking for wellness and joy, one week at a time.” I appreciate the “wellness and joy” aspects of the book. And, I absolutely love the format. My imagination immediately fired up as I read through the book.

Annabel grew up in a carless family. Her father never learned to drive and her mother failed her driving test seven times. The family lived in remote places without access to public transportation, so if they needed something, they walked to obtain it. As she returned to walking frequently, she made two rules for herself: walk instead of using the car, unless absolutely necessary and convert as many sedentary activities as possible into walking activities.In the author’s own words, this is A love letter to walking. I really enjoyed this fascinating book and I learned a great deal. It’s full of scientifically based advice on the best ways to walk for the benefit of physical and mental health and well-being. I love walking. I thought there was nothing I needed to learn about it but I learned a lot from this book. I recommend it to anyone looking to enhance their daily walks or to start walking more than they currently do.

most: Walk like a nomad, a meditative practice where you sync your steps with your breaths (3 steps breathe in, 1 step hold in, 3 steps breathe out, 1 step hold out) (perhaps even through your nose). Ways to Walk is published by Bloomsbury in the UK and Putnam Penguin Random House in the US under Annabel Streets. One of the joys of 52 Ways to Walk is discovering that there’s a scientific basis for much of what we’d call common sense or folk wisdom – and so much of it is rooted in leaving the house and going for a walk: getting the sun on your skin can help your immune system, and there’s nothing harmful in getting covered in mud. In fact, it can help your gut health.

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However, the chapters and modes of walking can also be accessed randomly, choosing a chapter here and the next week, flipping to another section of the book. My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Penguin Group Putnam for an advanced copy of this book on the walking lifestyle. Motivation is a large aspect of this book, so Ms. Streets writes about walking in the rain, the mud, the wind and the snow. The best attire for foul weather walking, with sensible advice o how to be safe. The book is more nudging than pedantic and that is nice as many self- help books can be frankly a tad, no a lot bossy. Things I liked about this book: So many ideas to think about walking in a new way and to keep the simple act of walking from being boring. Ideas to engage all the senses, different times of day, terrain, moods, duration, health benefits, etc.

For Streets, it was a spark, a gleeful rekindling of an old love affair. “Walking had never seemed more beguiling or thrilling,” she writes in the book’s introduction. Her friends, and especially her family, didn’t catch the same vibe. It was wet. It was cold. It was boring. It was slow. It was just… walking. There is another chapter where the author notes she lost her sense of smell due to COVID but then later in the chapter tells us she went on "smell walks" with the aforementioned lost sense. So either this book needed another edit to not allow readers to misconstrue these chapters, or the readers are being lied to. I appreciate that the book contains a full year of weekly walks. And it inspires me to create other interesting walks as well.

Walking had become, once again, the great adventure of my life. But this time science could explain how and why"