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Summary: Lots of walking!
Review: Bill Bryson can sometimes be too cute for my liking, but his style works well in this book. With his sometimes trusty sidekick Katz, who is totally out of his element here, the two decide to hike the Adirondack Trail from Georgia to Maine. Bryson keeps things light and breezy, but at the same time, the difficulties of such an undertaking are shown; the cold, the rain and snow, and the anxieties about getting lost and running into wild animals. There are many interesting and humorous moments here, getting a wild ride from a young couple in Georgia, having a woman tag along with them and drive them crazy, staying with many others in a slummy bunkhouse, Katz disappearing in the middle of nowhere and so on. After a long time hiking and checking the map to see that they had not travelled far at all, one could really appreciate the vast distance they had to walk. Bryson more than once says that the walk was monotonous and pointless in many ways, which is why he eventually had to skip many sections. His walk in the coal mining country of Pennsylvania was among the most interesting, especially the town with fault cracks throughout. Living in a New England college town Bryson goes a bit overboard with his uneasiness about "rednecks" but his comments are made in fun and it's more about being a fish out of water than anything else. This book is just a fun read, and if approached in this way it is enjoyable.
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Summary: All quiet on the Appalachian Trail
Review: This book was written in the style of John McPhee and even quoting him once in a while. It includes facts and people like "The Perfect Storm." Then Bill Bryson adds first hand personal experiences. You can identify with his comments that do not have to be funny to be familiar.This book recounts Bill Bryson's experiences on the Appalachian Trail. The dry facts can be picked up through other material. However the personal experiences are just that, personal. If you have never been hiking then you still get a feel for what you have missed. However if you have hiked then you can really appreciate the people he met, and circumstances that he went through. There are hikers and then there are hikers. In the Boy Scouts you are usually in a well-organized group, in the military you have to be more cautious of objects and terrain, Sierra Club and Outward Bound have their unique points of view. So if his experience is different, it still makes for fun reading. I even liked the sections on selecting and using the equipment. I am afraid if I had met Bill Bryson on the trail; I would have been one of those "equipment comparing" people. Anyway do not expect an epic and you will enjoy the time you spend reading this book. Oh, and it does make me want to go hiking.
Rating: 
Summary: You can judge this book by its cover.
Review: Why does a book about the Appalachian Trail have a picture of a grizzly bear on cover? A bear that, as the author correctly points out, does not inhabit the Eastern United States. Likewise, the content of the book is something of a fraud in that Mr. Bryson didn't hike the entire trail. His humorous sytle of writing is quite entertaining -- at first. But like a sharp peeble in otherwise comfortable boots, his scornful treatment of so many people, especially Southerners he deems less intelligent than himself, wore me out. Didn't he meet anyone worthy of compliment on the trail? Less distasteful, but annoying nonetheless, is when Bryson figuratively wanders off trail and provides a superficial look at a number of environmental issues -- what is happening to the balds in the Smoky Mountains, for instance. The science behind his thoughts on these subjects is dubious or missing altogether. Fortunately, these passages become recognizable after the first two or three and it becomes easy to scan past them. While many people may enjoy A Walk in the Woods, I don't think that I have read a book that has managed to offend me on so many different levels.
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Summary: Not a hiker, not even outdoorsy, but I loved it!
Review: I've never been hiking, ever. But somehow, after reading Bryson's hilaroius (if that can even accurately describe it) account of his obsesssion and consequent hike of the historic Appalachian Trail, I wanted to run out and hike it myself! It has laugh out loud moments....some funny encounters with a couple of glowing eyes in the night, other hikers, and a few funny locals. It's also very poignant....a real look at the state of our national park system and the wildlife it attempts to maintain (or not). A good read for all, young and old, bookworms or not, outsdoorsy or not....all can appreciate Bryson's "dave barry-esque" humor.
Rating: 
Summary: Wow!
Review: No matter who you are or what your walk of life, you are doomed to get an A+ kick out of Bill Bryson's A Walk In the Woods. I am a sucker for humor, but not too much humor, so Bryson's story was perfect. I found myself laughing out loud, and smirking at some of his more bittersweet jokes. Not only is A Walk In the Woods a great adventure for the guys and an emotional-filled stroll for the gals, it is also an amazing wake-up call for everyone. Bryson intwined a lot of scary facts in his book about the horrendous conditions of the American forests. Don't fret; these facts didn't bore out the book. Bryson is too good of a writer to let his book be dull. But they did make the book permanently imprint my mind. In fact, his astounding revelations of the carelessness of the Forest and Park Services promted me to write a letter to Congress about how park bills NEED to be passed. Look, plain and simple, it is a great story with great characters and wonderful writing. Read it or you'll regret it later.
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Summary: A Walk in the Woods is a Breath of Fresh Air
Review: What a great book! For all of us who would love to hike the trail but can't, for whatever reason or excuse, this is a good way to experience it. You get a first hand account of what hiking the AT really entails (discomfort, hunger, dampness, fear, loathing, joy, satisfaction, exhaustion..)and plenty of interesting history to bolster what you are "seeing" as you make your way along the trail. This is life on the Appalachian Trail and Bryson brings it to us with verve and wit. Yes, he and his buddy Steve are over weight and out of shape but that doesn't stop them. And neither does meeting obnoxious people on the trail. There's Mary Ellen for a start, fascinating as a multi car pile up. It's nasty but you can't look away. (Bill and Steve graciously put up with her way longer than I would have.) As for stealing shoe laces from another hiker's boots who showed a gross lack of trail etiquette or consideration for anyone else? I would have taken the boots!! But all these details aside, Bill Bryson has a keen wit that will sustain through the highs and lows of his hike. He'll make you want to go out and buy all the gear and go hike the trail. A funny highly readable book. I highly recommend this one.
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Summary: Perfectly Hilarious
Review: This book is a slice of perfection. It's a hilarious travel book that will have you rolling with laughter. Bill Bryson's wry humor and delightful anecdotes make this book the best I have ever read. BUY THIS BOOK. You will not regret it.
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Summary: Surprising touching (and, of course, pretty damn funny)
Review: This book has been sitting on my bookshelf, unread, for over year now, ever since I announced to friends and family that I wasa planning to do a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail and promptly got two copies for Christmas (a little gift coordination please, people?). During that time, thirty to forty well-meaning souls have asked me, in one form or another, "Oh, so you're going to hike the Appalachian Trail? Have you read 'A Walk in the Woods?' It's really funny." Right. The last straw, though, was when my two roommates each grabbed the book off the shelf and read it in a period of about three weeks. Fine. I'll read it. To begin with, I didn't have the highest of expectations. I'm not the world's biggest fan of non-fiction, and the humor of incompetence (Darwin awards excepted, of course) doesn't do much for me. And for the first two chapters, my worst fears were headed for confirmation -- Bryson the incompetent shopper and Bryson the incompetent packer, sprinkled liberally with little asides about Bryson the incompetent, overweight hiker. I went outside and announced to my roomate (the second one who read the book), "I don't think I'm going to like this book very much." Well, I was wrong. Bryson the hiker reaches the trail, where he and his pal promptly throw away much of their unnecessary gear (and slightly more necessary food), and Bryson the writer magically throws away much of his smug idiocy. The book becomes a rather touching account of he and his friend's sheer desire to hike the trail, in the face of the fact that they're in no way prepared, physically or mentally, to do so. A hundred pages in, we can easily see why. In between all the humor (and there's a lot of that), Bryson manages to convey the joy of carrying one's life on one's back, and moving only as far and as fast as one can walk in a day. Incidentally, the book contains a fair amount of ecological, environmental, and historial information about the Appalachians and the trail, nicely packaged so that we hardly realize that we're being taught something until it's too late to object. All in all, this book is good stuff. Highly recommended.
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Summary: HIGHLY ENJOYABLE! (but didn't need the science lesson)
Review: I only write a review when the book was either awful or the best thing I've read lately. Bill Bryson's A WALK IN THE WOODS is definately the latter. All the blurbs you see on the back testifying that this is a funny book are not only true, they're an understatement. There are times when Bryson is either describing his own bewilderment or the bewilderment of his hiking companions (most notably "Katz", though those who have had the pleasure of reading WOODS will remind you of a certain thick-headed woman named "Mary Ellen") that forced me to laugh out loud and to wipe tears from my eyes. This is the strength of the book. The weaknesses are few but taxing, such as the author's tendency to preach on conservation and evolution. But thank goodness these side-trips are brief, usually under 3 or 4 pages, so they don't detract from the fun of the book. A wonderful job!
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Summary: 340 pages about a trail ? Doesn' this sound like hardcore ?
Review: I bought "A Walk In The Woods " at the airport on the way back from a hiking adventure on the southern hemisphere.So I thought it to be the ideal book to read and compare my impressions with the author's.I soon got absorbed by the book and by the very ironical way of writing.The first half of the book is indeed brilliant and worth reading as you get a good picture of the trail and additional information about its history(etc.) .Nevertheless,at a certain stage your reading slows down: The trail gets somewhat uniform and boring to both the author and the reader and together with Bryson's arrogance concerning everybody apart from himself it makes the reader struggle with the second half of the book. Why the hell did he not stop writing at page 150 ?
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