Windswept cover art

Windswept

why women walk

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Windswept

By: Annabel Abbs
Narrated by: Fenella Fudge
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About this listen

The story of extraordinary women who lost their way - their sense of self, their identity, their freedom - and found it again through walking in the wild. A feminist exploration of the power of walking in nature, following in the footsteps of Gwen John, Georgia O'Keeffe, Frieda Lawrence, Clara Vyvyan, Simone de Beauvoir, Daphne Du Maurier and Nan Shepherd.

For centuries, the wilds have been male territory, while women sat safely confined at home. But not all women did as they were told, despite the dangers; history is littered with women for whom rural walking became inspiration, consolation and liberation.

In this powerful and deeply inspiring book, Annabel Abbs uncovers women who refused to conform, who recognised a biological, emotional and artistic need for wilderness, water and desert - and who took the courageous step of walking unpeopled and often forbidding landscapes.

Part wild-walk, part memoir, Windswept follows an exhilarating journey from Abbs' isolated car-less childhood to her walking the remote paths trodden by extraordinary women including Georgia O'Keeffe in the empty plains of Texas and New Mexico, Nan Shepherd in the mountains of Scotland, Gwen John following the Garonne, Simone de Beauvoir in the mountains and forests of France and Daphne du Maurier following the River Rhone.

A single question pulses through their walks: how does a woman change once she becomes windswept?

©2021 Annabel Abbs (P)2021 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Travel & Tourism Women
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    3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting but..

An interesting account of women walking but spoiled for me by the reader’s use of high rising tone to end most sentences. It makes her sound questioning and puzzled for much of the book. Irritating.

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love it!

"From outer strength comes inner freedom."

"I asked male friends if they ever walked with fear, they looked at me with incomprehension."

We follow Abbs as she walks through a part of France, and while she talks about her walks, she also gets into the amazing and often weird women that have walked so much it was part of what made them famous.

The whole book was just amazing. I loved learning about the women and their trailblazing days, about their lives and choices. Ultimately my favorite stories were on Simone de Beauvoir and Nan Shepherd. Both captured me and I felt a sense of belonging and a grear deal of companionship. I recognized myself in much of their parts, and it was enlightening, interesting and captivating all at once. It explores the differences in what it means to be a woman on a walk, vs being a man on a walk. As Abbs states in the book, most men don't even know what it means to be afraid when you walk alone. It gives perspective.

This is not a book that you go through and get some short anecdotes and happy go lucky ways of describing some short hikes. No, this book goes into the raw details, the lost toe nails from hiking, the dangerous mountain paths and screams for help where no one comes and helps. This book is not for the faint of heart, but it is for the adventurer looking for recognition in what it means to be a wanderer, a hiker, a solitude seeking explorer.

I love this book.

On the narrator, she was a bit too slow for my taste and I agree that it was a bit weird the way she went up at the ends, but ultimately I got so consumed by the book itself, and it helped to up the narration speed, that it didn't bother me.

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