Wanderlust: A History of Walking (2012)

In an age of step classes and adventure stunts, Rebecca Solnit's ode to walking, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, proves a mentally invigorating antidote. Solnit believes walking and thinking are reciprocally linked — that ''the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour.'' She supports her theory with a breezy survey of peripatetic philosophers and writers, from Aristotle to Virginia Woolf. Meandering through human bipedalism, urban policy, garden design, nature treks, pilgrimages, and the joys of urban roving, Solnit's beautifully written chronicle visits several continents but ends with an inspired promenade down a new pedestrian paradise: the Vegas strip. A-