Rating: 
Summary: Armchair traveling at its best.
Review: I found A Walk in The Woods entertaining and that is the point of travelogues. I read it during a 2 day snowstorm and it took me away when I was ready to go nuts. Bill Bryson shares his experiences of his decidedly wild hair-ish type expedition to go on a hike of a lifetime. Only trouble was he hadn't hiked like that before and didn't have anyone to go with him at first. That doesn't stop his determination and the result is hardwork for him, and enjoyment for us who would never experience such a thing otherwise.What it isn't: it's not a guide book for the Appalachian Trail. It's not a how-to-book for hikers; it doesn't have any maps or trails. It's a travel memoir, nothing more. If you are looking to do a little traveling in mind only, then it will be enjoyable. If you're wanting more hard fact information and details on the trail itself, then this isn't what you're looking for.
Rating:
Summary: Armchair traveling at its best.
Review: I found A Walk in The Woods entertaining and that is the point of travelogues. I read it during a 2 day snowstorm and it took me away when I was ready to go nuts. What it isn't: it's not a guide book for the Appalachian Trail. It's not a how-to-book for hikers; it doesn't have any maps or trails. It's a travel memoir, nothing more. If you are looking to do a little traveling in mind only, then it will be enjoyable. If you're wanting more information and details on the trail itself, then this isn't what you're looking for.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining yet insulting.....
Review: Yes bill bryson is a funny guy but always at somebody elses expense. The guy seems to feel that the universe revolves around him and instead of showing reverence or at least respect for this american treasure that is the AT he finds most of his material from the people he encounters. Seems to me that this iowa born resident of new hampshire who has spent much of his adult life in england really doesn't care much for americans. Especially southerners. Much of the first half of this book involves his constant cracks about southern rednecks. Ok a few funny references to deliverence are acceptable but bryson doesn't stop there the cracks go on and on. Once he expressed his concern for running into "genetically challenged" people on the trail. Imagine if he wrote about hiking through harlem and used that term or wrote about hiking in an indian reservation and used that same term. Then bryson wouldn't be funny he would just be considered a bigot. Fact is mr bryson is an equal opportunity jerk because he doesn't like anybody. Almost everyone he encounters in this book has something wrong with them according to bryson. They are too stupid(everyone is stupid to him) too fat or speak the wrong way or drive the wrong vehicle. Now this isn't just a travel journal. Bryson tries to prove to us that he did his homework and really knows what he's talking about. Who cares. If you really want to know about hiking the appalachian trail there are hundreds of better books from people who have actually hiked the whole thing. If you want to know about the natural history of the appalachians you can also do much better. Bryson tries to tries to tie all these things together and for me it just doesn't work. ...................socks
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: Huge dissapointment being the first book I read from the acclaimed Bryson... Too long for what it tells, should have been an article or a short story.
Rating:
Summary: NOT a book for REAL backpackers
Review: This is absolutely the most ignorant book I have ever read. Not only does this fellow have no idea what he is doing on the trail but he has no apparent respect for it either. Anyone who is interested in the AT or backpacking in general should Stay Away as this book gives the reader NO concept of the true experience of backpacking. I am almost embarassed to admit I read this book. Above all else, I was crushed by the disappointing ending to the book and his travels. My advice? Don't waste your time if your are genuinely interested in wilderness or travel writing. Try some Abbey.
Rating:
Summary: Gets me ready for spring!
Review: Bill Bryson, accompanied by his crazy friend Stephen Katz, has decided on a whim to hike the Appalachian Trail. A whim! Not the best approach to an incredibly difficult 2000+ mile hike. The two of them are completely out of shape and definitely unprepared for what they have signed on for. As the book progresses, Bryson shares not only how they came to terms with the fact that perhaps they had taken on a bit more than they should have, but some truly great information about life on the trail. There is a history of the AT, ecological information, and even a smattering of backwoods tips (mostly centering on Bryson's fear of bear attacks). Overall, A Walk in the Woods is a very humorous book--full of laughs primarily at the author's expense. At the same time, the true beauty of nature juxtaposed with the disaster of modern day America stands out in sharp relief. This is one of the few books I would say warranted its time on the bestseller list.
Rating: 
Summary: Bryson is capable of better
Review: On the cover of this book, Bill Bryson is compared to, among others, Garrison Keillor. But in this book, he does what Keillor doesn't do -- take cheap shots at the people he meets in order to get a laugh. While Bryson is genuinely funny in places, he also isn't someone I'd particularly want to meet. He's a misanthrope with none of Paul Theroux's (another classic travel misanthrope) class, insight, or writing ability. He believes that it is his lot in life to "have to talk to every stupid person on earth" (paraphrase, but pretty close). Not a promising premise from which to write anything insightful or, eventually, even amusing. This surpised me, because Bryson was nothing like this in some of his other books -- "Lost Continent," for example, which manages to be extremely funny and observant without treating the people he encounters as idiots or sub-human. Here, he just comes across as a somewhat boorish snob looking for a reason to write a travel book. So why do I give it 3 stars? Because he has managed to interest me in the fate of the Appalachian Trail and in the wildlife found there. I want to learn more. And because he does have moments of funniness. And because he gives us a few glimpses of what this book could've been when he talks about what it took for him to do the hiking that he did, the psychological and emotional struggles, the gradual change in his outlook toward physical challenges, and the interesting and occasionally idiosyncratic research he shares. Ultimately, Bryson just seemed to be going through the motions here. He's capable of much better.
Rating:
Summary: WHAT A MIDLIFE CRISIS!
Review: The same week I was reading in article on the Appalachian Trail in the Travel section of the newspaper was the same week I ran along this book in the "New Release" section of the library. As I read the sleeve and found out the author was a fellow Iowan now living in New Hampshire, I was hooked. This book is just what it says it is--literally and figuratively: A "Rediscovering of America" while walking the Appalachian Trail. Of course it is also a brief historical overview of the history of the trail itself. In fact it's those portions of the book where Mr. Bryson offers us a glipse into the little historical idiosyncracies and absurdities of stops along the Trail that I found more interesting than the hiking itself. The history of America and the melting-pot she is is almost a study in the absurd. Bryson exploits these and makes us laugh along the way. There are critics to this book, of course. Mamby-pamby purists who want this book to be something it is not. Many of them will follow my own review on this site. Read them and you'll see what I am talking about. This books was not meant to be study of the Appalachian Trail. Nor was it some sort of guide to hiking the Trail. It's simply an entertaining observation from someone who could have had a whole lot worse mid-life crisis. I am skeptical myself of the character Katz. I am from Iowa and many of the things he discribed about his hiking partner could have been contrived, but somehow I doubt it. It's certainly possible. Journeys like this (thinking of "Huck Finn" and "On the Road") need their "Id" characters. Perhaps Katz is merely the subconsience of Bryson--the inner-person he is struggling to suppress inside his middle-age body. Certainly Katz fits that description, but somehow I think that a character contrived like that would be inappropriate to this story. But I don't know, I am an amateur at this analysis stuff. In any case, this book is thoroughly entertaining and will certainly have you laughing out loud at his quips towards the variety of people that hike and work on this trail, as well as just the folks he runs into along the way (from the guy that sells him the hiking equipment at the beginning, to the guy who drives 90 mph in a pickup as Katz and Bryson ride in the back to the town at the end). Read it for entertainment and for a few laughs. But like any joke, there is always the nugget of truth inside the punch-line that makes it funny. No doubt you will notice them. The critics didn't.
Rating: 
Summary: Bryson is hilarious, esp. in his own voice
Review: I started out listening to Bill Bryson thru a CommonWealth Club appearance he made soon after writing 'A walk in the woods' and that particular 1-hour speaking engagement is an excellent introduction to Bryson and his writing. (You can find that CommonWealth Club presentation and all of Bryson's books as audiobooks at Audible.com - just follow the "Audio Download" link in Amazon's description of any Bryson book). Don't buy the book when you can get the audio download for so [much lessmoney]. Beware! If you listen to 1 hour of Bryson, you may end up listening to all the rest of his books, all read by the author. I imagine Bryson is funny enough on the printed page, but in his own voice, he is simply hilarious. A bit of advice: don't listen to more than one Bryson book per month, as they do tend to get a bit repetitive. Bryson sees humor and irony in everything he writes about, and he's unyieldingly upbeat. Sometimes it sounds like every thought of his is like this: "I walked into this cafe that WAS LIKE NO OTHER ON EARTH, and I WAS IN LOVE - the sky was SO BLUE and the water was SO TRANSPARENT, and the coffee's aroma was SO (well) AROMATIC."
Rating:
Summary: An insult to the AT and all the people who love it
Review: When I first sifted through this in the bookstore I wondered about Bryson's continuing bear obsession, given that he doesn't see one. Now that I've finished it I realized it's the funniest part of the book. The bear is really Bryson's own repressed conscience, reproaching him for what he did. I strongly recommend that all the people who loved this book here purchase and read Jean Deeds' "There Are Mountains to Climb" before ridiculing us "purists." She didn't finish the trail either, but she can truly claim to have tried, and you kind of wish Bryson or Katz had been the one to break their leg stumbling down a mountainside. She's Gallant to their Goofus, preparing properly (One word, Bill: maildrop). And there is something in that book you won't find here: humility. I haven't hiked much of the AT, but I've done some maintenance work on it here in NY's Hudson Valley and may try the whole trail some day. All the thruhikers I've met are like Deeds and unlike Bryson by the time they get up here: whatever their lives off the trail, they have achieved what even Bryson calls "a low-level ecstasy" (Passages like that one are what's especially frustrating about this book, as you can glimpse what might have been and realize that Bryson knows it too. Perhaps his publisher should have made him finish the trail or canceled the contract). They realize that what they have accomplished, mighty though it is, is still nothing compared to what they have passed through (yes, even Pennsylvania). You won't find any of that here. Deeds may not make you laugh out loud on the bus, but that's because she has a wider perspective and realizes that not everything is meant to be fodder for a blazing irreverent wit (and that is genuinely hilarious, but by the end of the book, it has become as distracting as a cloud of blackflies). Deeds actually comes across as a human being and not a slumming writer, so you feel sorry for her injury in Maine, a few hundred miles from Katahdin, after she'd come so far. So is it just us hard-core hikers who resent the way the AT is portrayed? I have a friend who section-hikes down south, and he reports that Bryson has made enemies up and down the Trail with his depictions of certain campgrounds and the people there. Some people wanted to sue him for defamation. (Go way down in these reviews, and you'll see that "Bryson" has entered the thru-hiker argot as a verb meaning "to make a really stupid error") I also found the other reviews noting certain factual errors and discrepancies to be interesting. "Mother Tongue" has a number of howlers regarding the history of the English language, and it wouldn't surprise me that Bryson has at best a casual commitment to telling his readers the truth. (I especially like where he correctly refers to Clingmans Dome as the highest peak on the trail, then later says Mt. Washington is the highest peak east of the Rockies. They can't both be right ... does he even have an editor?) But I learned the kicker from a 2000 thruhiker who gave a slide show near me: KATZ DOES NOT REALLY EXIST. The owner of the campground where Bryson complains about being holed up for several days because of heavy snow in the GA/NC line area (which he seems to resent because it shouldn't snow in the south), recalls Bryson (after she finishes screaming about him) coming in ALONE at the time described. She said she would have remembered a foul-tempered fat guy, and there wasn't any. Since "Katz" is such a major part of the book's joy (and I admit, he is funny) for those who love it, I leave it to you to draw the proper conclusion from the above regarding Bryson and his real motives for writing this book.
| 
