The Walker

[The Walker] is an erudite book that moves at a pace alternating between brisk and leisurely ... Like his prose, Beaumont's mind is anything but pedestrian. He is as attuned to matters of medicine and science, anthropology, economics, philosophy and psychology as he is to literature and the visual arts ... Beaumont uses the language of contemporary literary theory, but with none of the rebarbative jargon-mongering of others in the professoriate. His references to the usual suspects--from Marx, Freud and Adorno through Lacan and Derrida, to Deleuze and Guattari, Zizek and Agamben--are never gratuitous, but always helpful in understanding the literary, historical, and psychological terrain he explores. --Willard Spiegelman, Wall Street Journal Matthew Beaumont's prose is the golden thread of elegance and erudition we need to guide us through the labyrinth of the modern city. These essays confirm him to be simultaneously the possessor of a coherent and convincing overview of emergent Modernist thought and creativity in the urban context, and the inheritor of all the radical subjectivities he engages with. This is a superb and always engrossing collection. --Will Self, author of Psychogeography [The Walker] is absolutely fascinating and [Beaumont's] literary references are wonderful ... I absolutely loved it. --Jo Good, BBC Radio London The Walker seeks to take its reader on an intriguing journey ... if you're looking for some escapism that goes beyond the cliches of repetitive travel literature, this could well be the book for you. --Northern Soul [Beaumont's] style is a treat--elegant, intelligent and entertaining as he describes the ways we read a city with our feet and mind, and guides us through a history of walking writing from Dickens and Poe to Marx and Zizek. --Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times An uncanny and haunting foreshadowing of our cities as they now appear to us ... familiar subjects are given revelatory new interpretations ... thought-provoking. --Margaret Drabble, Times Literary Supplement Drawing on numerous literary sources, both familiar and obscure, Beaumont takes the reader on a labyrinthine journey into the literature of walking and thinking. --Sean O'Hagan, Observer [A] heady blend of history and theory. --New Yorker Fascinating ... those interested in how literature has explored urban modernity are sure to find ample food for thought. --Publishers Weekly