Walking to Listen: 4,000 Miles Across America, One Story at a Time

Written by Andrew Forsthoefel

Narrated by Andrew Forsthoefel

At twenty-three, Andrew Forsthoefel headed out the back door of his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, with a backpack, an audio recorder, his copies of Whitman and Rilke, and a sign that read "Walking to Listen." He had just graduated from Middlebury College and was ready to begin his adult life, but he didn't know how. So he decided to take a cross-country quest for guidance, one where everyone he met would be his guide.



In the year that followed, he faced an Appalachian winter and a Mojave summer. He met beasts inside: fear, loneliness, doubt. But he also encountered incredible kindness from strangers. Thousands shared their stories with him, sometimes confiding their prejudices, too. Often he didn't know how to respond. How to find unity in diversity? How to stay connected, even as fear works to tear us apart? He listened for answers to these questions, and to the existential questions every human must face, and began to find that the answer might be in listening itself.



Ultimately, it's the stories of others living all along the roads of America that carry this journey and sing out in a hopeful, heartfelt book about how a life is made, and how our nation defines itself on the most human level.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Apr 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781977370846

Reviews for Walking to Listen

[Cory Lewis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An absolute masterpiece that moved me to tears upon conclusion. It would be silly to even try and capture the profound nature of Andrew's experience in just a few words. Listen to this immediately

[tytania-2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'll have to give this one a solid middle-of-the-road 3 out of 5. It gave me lots to think about. But so long, and repetitive... about halfway through, I started skimming. It seemed like the same story over and over: Andrew meets rednecks who immediately insist on feeding him and making him stay the night, and how can he refuse, and he just has the most wonderful time EVER and makes lifelong friends! So I started skipping all the stories, and trying to zero in on parts that were actually about the logistics of the walk, or about his insights. I wish it had been severely edited - it's well over 300 pages.