Without Abbs connecting the six walking women through her own story, Windswept would have been little more than a dry, academic textbook.Ībbs also seemed to spend an outsized amount of time, word count, and analysis discussing fear. Scrolling through Goodreads reviews, I saw that a few readers took issue with Abbs including so much of her own experiences in the book. But my lack of prior knowledge also meant it was difficult for me to keep track of their individual stories. Except for du Maurier and O’Keeffe, I hadn’t heard of any of them, so part of the appeal was Googling them and learning a bit more about them.

I’m torn about whether having prior knowledge of these women would make the book more enjoyable. Lawrence’s wife and muse), Gwen John (Welsh portrait artist), Clara Vyvyan (unfairly forgotten English writer and hiking partner of Daphne du Maurier), Nan Shepherd (Scottish nature writer), Simone de Beauvoir (French writer and feminist philosopher), and Georgia O’Keeffe (American abstract artist). But after Abbs’ presentation, maybe they should be.Īnyone who is interested in any of the women Abbs showcases: Frieda von Richthofen (D.H. Many of the women Abbs studied are famous, but not as hikers or naturalists. This is no woman-against-nature story.Īnyone who enjoys stories about understudied women. Who would I recommend this book to?Īnyone who loves nature writing or outdoor adventure stories, with the caveat that these walks are on the milder rather than wilder side.

Even if I don’t aspire to repeat Abbs’ (or Prior-Palmer’s or Buhring’s) exact adventures or routes, I find these stories incredibly inspiring. Abbs describes numerous hikes in faraway locales: Germany, Italy, France, Scotland, Texas, and New Mexico. Maybe it was my enforced captivity that made the book so appealing. My kids were able to see the Great Plains and Kansas prairie and I was able to spend two car-bound days reading. When our flight back was cancelled (one of thousands cancelled due to weather and the pandemic), we decided to rent a car and drive the 1,700-mile return trip to Maryland. I started reading Windswept over the holidays in Evergreen, a mountain town on Colorado’s Front Range.

Windswept annabel abbs