When Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways was published in 2012, it arrived at a moment when walking literature was experiencing something of a renaissance. But this book stood apart from its contemporaries, not simply as another meditation on walking, but as a profound investigation into the ancient paths that have been worn into the landscape by countless feet over millennia.

This book is a fictional account of a journey in the Amazon jungle. This might seem a strange choice given that only four months and two books ago I discussed Peter Fleming’s Brazilian Adventure which was an account of an actual journey in the Amazon jungle, but this book could hardly be more different: it is a children’s book, an adventure story about four children stranded in the Amazon when their plane crashes.

Despite being one of Bath’s most famous residents Jane Austen may seem an unlikely inclusion in this series but thanks to Kerri Andrew’s recent anthology of women’s writing about walking we have these 2 brief excerpts from her letters about walks in and around Bath in May 1801 (as well as extracts from two of her novels). After all she would not have used a carriage all the time and there were no electric scooters.

Two months ago I had never heard of this book originally published in 1933 and I would like to acknowledge James Owen’s fine review of it in The Times after its recent publication in a new paperback edition at the end of September, upon which much of the following is based.

The poetry of the Second World War was quite different from that of the First, reflecting radical differences between the two conflicts. One of the most famous poems from WW2 was by Henry Reed(not to be confused with his contemporary, the poet and critic, Henry Read),and often read on the radio, is called ‘Naming of Parts’; usually in a very solemn tone as if the words of an army NCO in how a basic army rifle works had some powerful metaphysical meaning.

When this book was first published in 2014 in France it became a surprise best seller. It’s an examination of the philosophy of various thinkers for whom walking was central to their work -Nietzsche, Rimbaud, Kant, Rousseau, Thoreau….., and being mainly pre-20th century no women are mentioned although as this series has shown that has changed in more recent years.

When this book was published in 2010 it received a chorus of enthusiastic reviews. In the Sunday Times it was described as a ‘sparkling biography of the Ordnance Survey and the people who made Britain a cartographic leader.’

Melissa Harrison has been writing a monthly Nature Notebook column in The Times since 2014-this collection of her pieces takes her from South London to Suffolk where she now lives; although she makes regular visits to London.

This book is similar to the previous one inasmuch as both are based upon the writings of well-known writers, Dickens and Pepys, which described walks they had made around London in their lifetimes - in Dickens’s case from his writings as a journalist before he started writing novels; in Pepys case from extracts in his diary.

The photo shows St. James Church, Cooling in Kent, where Dickens used to come as a child with his family who lived in nearby Higham. Cooling is about 5 miles from Rochester and close to the north Kent marshes. Dickens later used this spot for the opening scene in ‘ Great Expectations’ and the nearby Thames estuary for the final scene in the novel.

The photo here shows Werner Herzog, the well-known German film director, with Lotte Eisner, the leading German film critic during the Weimar period in Germany in the years after the First World War. Herzog has produced, written and directed more than fifty feature and documentary films during his career, published more than a dozen books and directed as many operas.

In addition to Mike Pitts’ recent book on the construction of Stonehenge it is important to acknowledge an academic paper published in Mercian Geologist 2021 20 (2) with the title ‘The Sarsens of the West Woods , Marlborough Downs and Stonehenge’ which is a vital source for the book and written by Peter Worsley of Reading University with the advice and help of many others.

As Rebecca Solnit, one of the few female writers on the subject of walking, and already discussed in this series for the BRC website, says: ‘Throughout the history of walking…the principal figures had been men.’

In her book Windswept, Annabel Abbs sets out to search for other women, well-known for other reasons but not for their enthusiasm as walkers and in their cases not just local walks but serious excursions to remote and sometimes mountainous rural locations, often alone.

The most recent Penguin edition of ‘Arabian Sands’ has an excellent introduction by Rory Stewart, himself a formidable walker.