Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women Hardcover – September 7, 2021

Being a solo hiker, I could relate to this book. Very well written.

I experience several stages on a long walk: the excitement of the beginning, followed by the question, "What was I thinking?" and then the settling in--not concerned about how long or why. Just walking. I felt very much the same reading this. It pulled me in and then we just flowed along together.

I read this having LOVED Miss Eliza's Kitchen by the same author. This book was interesting, has prompted followup reading, and I got through it. That said, I was not swept away by the interjection of the memoir portions of the book.

I listened to this book while I walked and it was perfect. Annabel gives a very compelling argument for walking and does so through the history of writers and artist women before us. I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys walking/hiking and exploring the forest and sea.

What a delightful read. Stories about the outdoors are a dime a dozen but this is the first book of its kind I’ve read that shines light on women who dared to walk alone, and why. I loved hearing biographical details of the lives of extraordinary women who are often forgotten or sanitized in history books. Bought copies for my other outdoor-loving girlfriends. A great book to read in the bath or while sitting aside - wherever inspires you. Highly recommend!

I only wish I could blaze more trails with the author and the women featured here. This book opened my eyes to the fear that keeps some women tethered to the familiar and comfortable. I spent today thinking about how a well-loved home or community can free us to explore beyond it with courage and pleasure.

This well-researched book gives readers the chance to hike expanses of the American southwest with Georgia O’Keefe, the length of the Rhone with Australian-born Clara Vyvyan (who was 67 at the time!), and Paris and Provence circuits with Simone de Beauvoir. Abbs describes the rebellious courage of women trekkers from decades past; back then a woman walking alone was not “the done thing.” Abbs studies the women’s memoirs and sees tales of being turned away from rooms for the night, harassed by males, and learning to gauge a coyote’s proximity by the sound of its cries.The women highlighted in Windswept trekked not so much out of compulsion but as path to joy, to reach the ecstatic. Simply put, the trails were liberating. Poetically put, de Beauvoir said, “I was as vapour in the blue airs of summer and knew no bounds.”Ms. Abbs, herself an avid walker since her youth, does her best to retrace these routes. Not easy, since a once-bucolic route in France is now a highway filled with speeding trucks. She summons up courage when she finds herself on a ledge in southern France with a sheer drop and a huge boulder in the way, and again when she has (for lack of a better phrase) a panic attack in a forest. But Abbs goes back to her room, reassesses, and the next time makes her way through. She also weaves in the bravery of the women with her own concerns upon becoming an empty-nest Mom.All in all, a great read. Can a woman today, with her travel apps and credit cards, match the gutsiness of the journeys recounted in this book? Don’t know, but hopefully she can at least carry some of the spirit of the earlier walkers.

This interesting book contains many lyrical passages about the restorative power of nature and of creativity. Rather than staring at a comouter, the author pushes us to get outside and be enveloped by wildness, and have the courage to go alone. Highly recommended.