Walking Distance by Lizzy Stewart: book review

Walking Distance (2019) is set in London, England.

The author and illustrator writes about walking—walking herself and watching other women walk, especially women walking in films. How does the scene of a woman walking in a film add to the essence of the film? It’s an interesting thought.

Stewart has lots of interesting thoughts and wonderful illustrations of her walking. And just ordinary women doing ordinary walking.

This is a self-reflective dialogue on the author’s own development, thoughts, actions, and interactions with people in the world as a 31-year old woman. The world’s current political events, its pressures, and its progress. As she does so, she walks with purpose.

‘I think it makes me, an uncertain person, into a machine in forward motion; definite and capable. I like walking because it takes me out of my head and into the world. Walking is the clearest way for me to participate in life and that’s the best I can do.’

I love this book. It is short, simple, well-illustrated, revealing, insightful, delightful, introverted, thought-provoking, and, above all, honest. She is honest, exposing herself, her uncertain self, to the world in an authentic way.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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