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Loading... A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trailby Bill Bryson
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» 36 more Favourite Books (280) Top Five Books of 2014 (150) Books Read in 2019 (63) Books Read in 2020 (197) Sense of place (25) Carole's List (82) Books Read in 2014 (298) Books Read in 2023 (402) Books Read in 2018 (773) Books Read in 2016 (2,241) Unread books (290) Books tagged favorites (139) Books Read in 2021 (2,586) Funny Books (4) Books Read in 2000 (35) Books I've read (35) New England Books (88) No current Talk conversations about this book. Review to follow ( ![]() This book is a good but certainly not excellent read. It will appeal to those who have an interest in the Appalachian Trail, hiking, or outdoor adventures. I appreciated how the author interspersed anecdotes and historical background as regards various areas connected to the trail. Occasionally I appreciated his humor -regarding the complexities involved in purchasing necessary equipment, the interactions between the author and his buddy and/or other hikers on the trail, local townspeople along way, etc. However, I thought the book was simplistic and the humor often fell flat. Nor is there much profound or any significant takeaways. Finally, the book could have been more concise. Good, funny. Witty travelogue of a hike along the Appalachian Trail. Chock full of history, amusing anecdotes, trivia, and more. This is another that didn't hold up to expectations, and perhaps because I just read Scott Jurek's excellent two books. After those, this felt like a considerable flop, and I had a lot of cringe moments. It was also just boring in places--I think it's noble to try and get a lot of the AT's history in and to talk about all the destruction and change, but it wasn't really well done. It felt kind of like it was thrown in there to fluff the story up and the details weren't told in a particularly interesting fashion, so though I wanted to know them, I got bored with reading them. This just completely fell into my thoughts on a lot of "big journey" books--it lacked momentum and it lacked any propulsive details. He skips more of the AT than he hikes, and I agree with his argument that he still hiked the AT because hike your own hike, man, but I'm just not sure why his story was one interesting enough to write a book about, because quite frankly, it wasn't. Maybe this one would be more enjoyable to casual hikers. Or people who didn't just read Jurek.
Bryson's breezy, self-mocking tone may turn off readers who hanker for another ''Into Thin Air'' or ''Seven Years in Tibet.'' Others, however, may find themselves turning the pages with increasing amusement and anticipation as they discover that they're in the hands of a satirist of the first rank, one who writes (and walks) with Chaucerian brio. [Bryson] was often exhausted, his ''brain like a balloon tethered with string, accompanying but not actually part of the body below.'' The reader, by contrast, is rarely anything but exhilarated. And you don't have to take a step. Is contained inHas the adaptationIs abridged in
Essays.
Travel.
Nonfiction.
Humor (Nonfiction.)
HTML: The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in Americaâ??majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If youâ??re going to take a hike, itâ??s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide youâ??ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the wayâ??and a couple of bears. Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumBill Bryson's book A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Popular covers
![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)917.40443History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography of and travel in North America Northeastern U.S. TravelLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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