Non-fiction books about walking: summer reading round up

Leaves are falling on my lawn, so I have to admit summer is over. (Even if it still is 90 degrees outside.) To that end I've been going through my summer reading. A big take away is that I like books about long distance walks. I read 4 of them this summer alone!

Walking with Plato by Gary Hayden will be one of my favorite books of the year. First of all it features two walking companions who actually like each other. The book doesn't end with them divorced, owing each other money, or barely speaking. Instead they cheered each other on, and grew as a couple. Second of all the author didn't bog it down with scientific descriptions of the trees or geology. He simply tells the story of a walk. He reads and he thinks as he goes, and this book is a simple yet satisfying unpacking of his thoughts. He wasn't trying to write a book as he set off, and the reader gets a much better story for it.

I read Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery a few weeks before my ill-fated trip to Maine. I was really inspired by Grandma Gatewood. Read my full review here.

It took me two tries to get through Step by Step by Lawrence Block. When I started again this summer I really got into the story of this mystery writer who also happens to be a competitive walker. I've never read any of his mystery books; I heard of him when listening to The Moment. (Look for it on iTunes.)

As I wrote in Quick Lit Walking the Amazon by Ed Stafford isn't the best written book. It was a pretty good adventure story about a long walk though (like 3 years.) This was a great book to read in the car while my husband drove us around the Great Lakes.

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July Quick Lit

Each month I link with Modern Mrs. Darcy's Quick Lit as a way to talk about the books I liked, but didn't review.

DC Metro has decided to make up for years of delayed repairs by doing them all at once this summer. That means they are just shutting down certain areas of track for weeks at a time leaving a whole city to scramble when it comes time to get to work. I'm learning the city's bus system, and getting in some extra reading time while I wait for unfamiliar modes of public transportation to arrive. July 2016 might be a record breaking reading month for me!

If I had just picked up Eligible as a Curtis Sittenfeld fan I would have hated the horribly bigoted characters. However, since I knew it was a play on Pride and Prejudice I kind of found the whole thing amusing and impressive. This book doesn't stand alone like Bridget Jones does, but as a Jane Austen re-write it's kind of cute. I loved that Mary got a chapter at the end of the book. 

Home Field by Hannah Gersen is billed as a book fans of Friday Night lights will enjoy. I've never watched Friday Night Lights, but I know enough people who have to know this book would appeal to me. It's one of those books that tells the story of nice people who are trying to do their best in a really tough situation. The ending was just about perfect. (Note: review based on an ARC I received from Library Thing.)

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell was entertaining - we all would like a world where Bronte descendants were reported on about as much as the Kardashians in this world wouldn't we? Another book with a perfect ending, this was well worth the read, though if I had to do it again I would wait and curl up with it on a cold winter's day.

The audiobook version of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods was road trip entertainment for my brother and I when we were driving to Maine last week. I've listened to this probably about eight times, but it never gets old for me. This is by far my favorite Bill Bryson book.

Rise of the Rocket Girls was interesting from a science standpoint, but even more interesting from a working mom point of view. This was an awesome look at some of the unknown heroes of NASA.

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