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A Walk in the Park: Damon Young with Ruth Quibell
Ruth Quibell, Damon Young and an audience of walkers in Princes Park — Photo: Jon Tjhia
This instalment of our 2017 series A Walk in the Park features two writers, Damon Young and Ruth Quibell, who know walking – and each other – well. They’re married.
Damon Young'Our culture of exercise is stupid, it is mechanical, it is … concerned with tuning up our bodily engines – and not with having a richer intellectual or ethical life.'
Young, a philosopher and writer of numerous books and genres, is the author of How to Think About Exercise, part of The School of Life’s series of books. In the book, he explores how closely bodies and minds relate to each other – and how crucial harmony between them is to our experience of humanity.
Ahead of a relocation to Tasmania (since completed), Young discusses these ideas (and more) on a walk with Quibell, a sociologist and writer who has described walking as her ‘more than a creative practice or physiological tuneup … walking has been my existential remedy’. Listen for an open-air, intimate conversation about walking, thinking and being human.
Photo: Jon Tjhia
Who?
Damon Young
Damon Young is a prize-winning philosopher and writer. He is the author of ten books in English and translation, including The Art of Reading, How to Think About Exercise, Philosophy in the Garden and Distraction. Young is also the author of several popular children’s books, including My Brother is a Beast and My Sister is a Superhero.
Ruth Quibell
Ruth Quibell is a sociologist and writer. Her first book, The Promise of Things, was published in 2016. She was described as 'best new talent' in the Saturday Paper's Books of 2016. She has also written for Island, Womankind, Meanjin, the Age and Sydney Morning Herald.
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