Waypoints

A story of tenacity, told with humility, in a West Africa experienced deeply at the pace of a walk. I loved this book - its thoughtfulness, turn of phrase and lightness of touch as the author escapes one life to rediscover another. -- Sophy Roberts, author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia Waypoints wonderfully explores how walking animates resilience in times of stress, anxiety and worry, illustrating, through personal experience, how the journey is often our collective human goal. -- Shane O'Mara, author of 'In Praise of Walking' An astonishing dream-like journey... Martineau has written a deeply affecting book which sears itself on the memory like the sun of the western Sahel. -- Philip Marsden, author of 'Rising Ground', 'The Spirit-Wrestlers' and 'The Crossing Place' A wonderful book. -- Giles Foden * i * An epic journey and a book worthy of it. A thrilling and poignant meditation on the elusive reasons for getting out of bed in the morning; a dazzling kaleidoscope of colour, sensation, and time. An important new voice has arrived. -- Charles Foster, author of 'Being a Beast' Terrific... a travel-writing gem. -- Tim Butcher, author of Blood River Stepping out in the spirit of Bruce Chatwin and Rebecca Solnit, Robert Martineau ranges through forest and desert, literature and philosophy, in search of an answer to why we are drawn to wander. Although he walks over a thousand miles, Waypoints is less a tale of endurance than a form of meditation. In elegant, searingly honest prose, he treads the same line as John Muir, for whom 'going out was really going in'. -- David Farrier, author of 'Footprints' As soon as I picked it up, I couldn't stop reading... immediate and soulful and searching. -- Pico Iyer