The birth of the Walking Book Club

In they stride, in muddy trainers or wellies, swirls of cold air caught on their clothes, children in off-road buggies, dogs bedraggledly in tow. I’ve always been thrilled that so many of our customers at Daunt Books in Belsize Park and Hampstead come in fresh from Hampstead Heath.

Growing up in north London, I’ve spent many an hour walking on this scrubby land, as wild as London will get. Every November I march a group of friends across the Heath for an ‘annual birthday stomp’; in the summer I swim in the icy ponds and laze in the hot grass afterwards. Many of my friends think I’m quite dotty for loving Hampstead Heath so much, so it was such a joy to find all these customers who not only shared my love of books but also of the heath. There must be a way to bring these mutual loves together, I thought, as soon as I started working at Daunt’s. There must be a way to take this bookshop up on to the heath. And so, nearly two years ago, the Walking Book Club was born.

I would pick a book, tell everyone about it by way of email, posters and gabbling at whoever would listen, and then a group of us would walk across Hampstead Heath for an hour on a Sunday morning, talking about the book. I thought we could use the landscape as conversation markers — talking about one subject until the top of Parliament Hill, then another until the fallen tree, and another until the avenue of limes. The number of people wouldn’t matter as we could split into twos, threes, and fours, until we regrouped, caught up, and set off again, drifting into different combinations.

The first book I chose was A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark.