If Raynor Winn's The Salt Path stayed with you - the walking, the weather, the way a hard road can slowly put a person back together - here's where to go next: nature memoirs and journeys on foot about landscape, loss and finding your feet again.
Editor's Picks
- H is for Hawk - grief tamed by a goshawk
- Landlines - Winn's fullest circle
- A Walk in the Woods - the funniest trail memoir
01The Wild Silence
Winn's own follow-up, on coming home, grief and a wild Cornish farm brought slowly back to life. If you simply want more of that voice, this is where to go. Read after The Salt Path, not before.
02Wild
Grieving and adrift, Strayed walks a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone. The American cousin to The Salt Path - raw, funny and hard-won. Pairs naturally with The Salt Path, though Strayed is funnier and considerably less English about hardship.
03The Outrun
Returning to Orkney and sobriety, Liptrot rebuilds herself through wind, sea and birdsong. Fierce and clear-eyed about wild places as a way back to yourself. Especially good on the tension between wanting to leave a small island and needing to return to it.
04H is for Hawk
Grief, a goshawk and dazzling prose. A different landscape but the same beating heart - loss met head-on in the company of a wild creature. The one to give someone who says they do not read nature writing.
05The Old Ways
Macfarlane walks the ancient paths of Britain and beyond, and writes about them like no one else. For the walking, the history and the sheer beauty of the sentences. The natural starting point for Macfarlane, with Underland waiting when you want to go deeper.
06A Walk in the Woods
Bryson and a hopeless old friend attempt the Appalachian Trail. Warmer and far funnier than the rest - the one for when you want the walk without the heartache. Bryson at his most reliably funny.
07Wintering
On rest, retreat and the fallow seasons of a life. Not a walking book, but the same restorative note - permission to slow right down and heal. Best taken slowly, a chapter a night, when the clocks have gone back and you need permission to stop.
08The Living Mountain
Shepherd's slim, luminous account of knowing one mountain range utterly. The quiet ancestor of every book on this list, and still the most beautiful. Under a hundred pages, endlessly re-read.
09Landlines
Winn's third walk - Scotland to the South West, with Moth's health failing again. If The Salt Path mattered to you, this is the fullest circle. Read the first two books first; this one lands hardest if you have walked the earlier miles.
10Walking Home
The poet walks the Pennine Way the wrong way round, giving readings for bed and board. Wry, self-deprecating and quietly moving. The lightest book on this shelf, and a good palate cleanser between heavier walking memoirs.
11The Wild Places
Macfarlane goes looking for the last wild places in Britain and Ireland - and finds wildness somewhere unexpected. Luminous, learned walking-writing. A fine companion to The Old Ways, and arguably the warmer of the two.
12Raising Hare
A political adviser's life is upended by a leveret found in a field. A quiet phenomenon - stillness, attention and one wild animal. For readers who liked H is for Hawk but want something calmer and more domestic.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Salt Path about?
Raynor Winn's memoir follows her and her husband walking the 630-mile South West Coast Path after losing their home and facing a devastating diagnosis. It's about walking, homelessness, marriage and the strange healing of wild places.
What should I read straight after it?
The Wild Silence, Winn's own sequel, is the natural next step. For a similar journey by a different writer, Cheryl Strayed's Wild is the closest match in spirit.
Are these all true stories?
Mostly - this list leans on memoir and nature writing. Only the tone really varies: Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods is the comic outlier, ideal if you want the landscape without the heartbreak.
Which of these work best as audiobooks?
The memoirs, particularly the ones read by their authors - walking narratives suit listening, and hearing someone tell their own story adds something the page does not. The more literary nature writing tends to reward reading on paper, where you can slow down over the prose.
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