A good colleague asked me recently how often I regret reading a book. We had a long conversation about it, but the short answer is: almost never. As a quick glance at my Goodreads profile will tell you, this is not because I only read masterpieces. In fact, it’s very rare that I think a book merits five stars. But that does not mean I regret reading the rest.

I’m an experienced enough reader to know how I relate to books (although this relationship keeps evolving) and I usually have a good reason to read whatever I decide to read. These reasons can be very different – I need distraction from a tough time at work, I want to have first-hand knowledge of a classic, the book has been praised by trustworthy reading buddies, I’m obsessed with a topic and am reading everything I can get my hands on, etc, etc. I also want to keep an element of randomness in my choices, to occasionally read things that I don’t naturally gravitate towards. Otherwise, things can get too predictable and comfort zone-y.

This philosophy pretty much dictates that I read books of varying quality and enjoyment potential. The trashy distraction is probably not going to be a literary sensation, the classic I want to know about may not be much fun and the topic I’m interested in could be so obscure that there are only a couple of books of questionable quality available on it. And that’s fine with me. I actually find it somewhat claustrophobic to only read very, very good literature.

What I treasure, in addition to the emotional and intellectual enjoyment of texts, is the inspiration I get from books: how they illuminate something that I hadn’t thought about before and push me towards new ideas and places. For that, the book in question doesn’t necessarily have to be good in the conventional sense. Sometimes my best thoughts come as a reaction to something that has irritated me. Sometimes an otherwise mediocre book has one brilliant idea that redeems it for me.

Lauren Elkin’s Flâneuse is not a mediocre book – it’s well researched, nicely written and treats female experience with the respect it deserves. It combines many elements that are important to me: feminism, urban culture, art, literature, interesting women. That’s probably why I expected to love it, not just like it. It was an enjoyable read, but not a revelation. The central thesis – women can be flâneurs, too! – seemed pretty self-evident to me, while the content often didn’t have much to do with that point.

But that’s OK, as I got two things out of the book – one more abstract, the other quite practical. There is a chapter on the war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, arguably the least well connected to the overarching theme of the book. It was my favourite part, however, as I didn’t know much about Gellhorn who was an extraordinary person. Her 60 years of reporting from many major conflicts in the world is something I admire deeply. On page 250, Elkin talks about the “golden age of women daring to journey out” and mentions – in addition to Gellhorn – Rebecca West, Emily Hahn, Olivia Manning, Gertrude Bell, Jane Bowles, Freya Stark, Dorothy Carrington and Alexandra David-Neel. I have talked about the latter on the blog already and have a long-standing fascination with Gertrude Bell, an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, spy and archaeologist. I have also just ordered Rebecca West’s classic book on the Balkans, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Flâneuse tied all those separate threads together, pointing out and contextualising (for myself) my fascination with adventuresses. It also gave me several new people to research and to add to my private pantheon of interesting women.*

The other thing the book did was to remind me what a wonderful thing walking in the city is. I’m not a huge walker, but once I get to it, I love it. I also love cities. I used to walk a lot in Brussels when I first arrived – partly because I hadn’t figured out the metro yet, partly because I had more time than now and partly because I had a good companion. These days, I walk to work in the morning (it takes 6 minutes) and to the market on Sunday (15 minutes); that and an odd shopping trip is pretty much it. Winter isn’t the best time to rekindle one’s love affair with walking, but I’m inspired to do it.

Or maybe sitting in cafes, reading and people watching, qualifies as flaneusing too? I’m definitely good at that.

*There is also a wider point to be made about our need for women to look up to, the imperative to dig out and reclaim female history. Woolf has not been the only woman to write well throughout history, nor Sand the only one with a controversial lifestyle (both are big presences in the book, but there are many others). And everyone needs to know that. It also reminds me of this excellent essay by Kameron Hurley.