A Walk in the Woods
By Bill Bryson
The Granddaddy of all HIKES" - The Appalachian Trail.. 2,200 miles...
This book was quite delightful. His memoir of attempting this hiking feat with a friend is detailed and hilariously funny! It is interspersed with tons of facts, statistics, and history of the trail itself, The National Forest Service is a big theme in this book, tourism, animals, and also quaint little lodging towns along the way.
For instance there is a town, just off the trail, (an old coal mining town). It has been burning under the surface for years and years.. so much so that the town was evacuated. It is a ghost town now, and the ground is still smoking. Geologists suspect it will burn for many more years!! I find stories like that so interesting!!!
But, put aside all those little side stories and think about the majestic beauty of nature he definitely saw along the way and how literally breathtaking it must of been! ... I will say it again.. it was delightful.!! Oh how I LOVE the mountains! The way they look, the way they smell, the way they make you feel so insignifigant!
One description in the book, (when he describes an encounter with a moose) I felt immediate recognition of because I felt like I had that same experience a couple weeks before at a friend's cabin
"....we stared at each other for a good minute, neither of us sure what to do. There was a certain obvious and gratifying tang of adventure in this, but also something much more low-key and elemental---a kind of respectful mutual acknowledgment that comes with sustained eye contact. It was this that was unexpectedly thrilling--- the sense that there was in some small measure a salute in our cautious mutual appraisal. I was smitten"
Another fun part of the book is all of the different characters they meet along the way. People attempt to hike this trail all the time, and there is little shelters built along the way for people to sleep under. You get to know these people and their backstories, and that was fun to read about.
Bill Bryson is a very funny author and this book is full of his type of humor. Some may find it a little raunchy, but none of it really bothered me. A really great read! The book was just made into a movie this year starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. I was not super pleased with the movie, but delighted in this story of the majestic wonder of our planet.
This book was quite delightful. His memoir of attempting this hiking feat with a friend is detailed and hilariously funny! It is interspersed with tons of facts, statistics, and history of the trail itself, The National Forest Service is a big theme in this book, tourism, animals, and also quaint little lodging towns along the way.
For instance there is a town, just off the trail, (an old coal mining town). It has been burning under the surface for years and years.. so much so that the town was evacuated. It is a ghost town now, and the ground is still smoking. Geologists suspect it will burn for many more years!! I find stories like that so interesting!!!
But, put aside all those little side stories and think about the majestic beauty of nature he definitely saw along the way and how literally breathtaking it must of been! ... I will say it again.. it was delightful.!! Oh how I LOVE the mountains! The way they look, the way they smell, the way they make you feel so insignifigant!
One description in the book, (when he describes an encounter with a moose) I felt immediate recognition of because I felt like I had that same experience a couple weeks before at a friend's cabin
"....we stared at each other for a good minute, neither of us sure what to do. There was a certain obvious and gratifying tang of adventure in this, but also something much more low-key and elemental---a kind of respectful mutual acknowledgment that comes with sustained eye contact. It was this that was unexpectedly thrilling--- the sense that there was in some small measure a salute in our cautious mutual appraisal. I was smitten"
Another fun part of the book is all of the different characters they meet along the way. People attempt to hike this trail all the time, and there is little shelters built along the way for people to sleep under. You get to know these people and their backstories, and that was fun to read about.
Bill Bryson is a very funny author and this book is full of his type of humor. Some may find it a little raunchy, but none of it really bothered me. A really great read! The book was just made into a movie this year starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. I was not super pleased with the movie, but delighted in this story of the majestic wonder of our planet.
