Walking: The Pleasure Exercise: A 60-Day Walking Program for Fitness and Health

""If you are able to walk for ten continuous minutes you can start my walking program,'' writes Malkin, an oral surgeon and walking aficionado who puts forth a 60-day, four-stage fitness program, in which frequency, distance and intensity are increased gradually. Instructions for improving form, warming up, cooling down and stretching are detailed and useful. Unfortunately, the book is fattened with pages of references and insipid digressions, and the hackneyed prose has two left feet (``Among the many reasons why walking yields health are these: it is exercise and it is moderate''). The author might best stick to dentistry and leave the writing to a writer. Illustrations not seen by PW. (April 18)