Description

‘Informative and persuasive enough to rouse the most ardent couch pototo’ New Scientist

Walking upright on two feet is a uniquely human skill. It defines us as a species.

It enabled us to walk out of Africa and to spread as far as Alaska and Australia. It freed our hands and freed our minds. We put one foot in front of the other without thinking – yet how many of us know how we do that, or appreciate the advantages it gives us? In this hymn to walking, neuroscientist Shane O’Mara invites us to marvel at the benefits it confers on our bodies and minds, and urges us to appreciate – and exercise – our miraculous ability.

‘Will leave you itching to go out for a good old-fashioned stroll’ Mail on Sunday

*A Sunday Independent Book of the Week*

Publisher Review

[In Praise of Walking] it provides an antidote to the many miseries that can accumulate because of our modern, sedentary lifestyle * Simple Things * Forget apples. A walk a day really will keep the doctor away * Evening Standard * Like a poem to walking… [and] the science that might help convince planners to prioritise walking as a means of getting around — Lucy Whetman * UK Press Syndication * A fascinating new book that examines the multitudinous benefits of this form of locomotion * Harper’s Bazaar * A book that will leave you itching to go out for a good old-fashioned stroll * Mail on Sunday * Full of insights… an accessible and thought-provoking discussion of walking as a key to human success — Gina Rippon, author of The Gendered Brain * Gina Rippon, author of The Gendered Brain * Walking makes us healthier, happier and brainier … [O’Mara] knows this not only through personal experience, but from cold, hard data * Observer * Convincing and compelling … In Praise of Walking is peppered with insights about everything from 19th-century poets and flaneurs to modern-day experiments with subjects playing video games in fMRI scanners * Sunday Times * In Praise of Walking is both informative and persuasive enough to rouse the most ardent couch potato – perhaps saving humanity before our lifestyle consumes our brains completely — Jonathon Keats * New Scientist * Fascinating … O’Mara argues [walking] is intimately connected to our bodies, our brains, and ultimately how we exist as a species * The Times *