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Summary: My Side Still Hurts From Laughing
Review: This was the first Bill Bryson book I picked up, and it introduced me to a world of comical travel literature that I never knew existed. I was thinking about taking a weekend hike on the Appalachian Trail when my father-in-law insisted I take a look at this book. I did, and my side still hurts from laughing. From buying equipment to discarding eqipment to the misery and joy of the AT, this book is a must read for anyone who is the slightest bit curious about what goes on during a trail hike. You don't have to be a hiker to enjoy this book -- you just have to know how to read.Just in case you're curious, I took my hike, and plan to take many others. Through them all, this book is my constant companion.
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Summary: As a hiker, the author Cheated
Review: Hello. I was enjoying the book until about 1/2 way through, when the author and his companion decide to rent a car and drive from Knoxville to Roanoke. That's a distance of 259 McNally altas miles, but who knows how many Blue Ridge Mountain AT miles. This (driving instead of hiking) is like a football player selling a book about his experiences in the Super Bowl, but by the way he decided to sit out the second quarter because he was tired.
So, you may read this book for just the fun of it, but don't expect to learn about hiking. To be accurate, the title should be "A Walk and a Drive and a Walk", but then who would buy it.
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Summary: One word: Katz
Review: I love Bryson, as well as nearly everything he writes. But his erstwhile hiking companion, klutzy, overweight, out-of-shape, pragmatic Katz, steals the show in this book about a couple of neophytes attempting to hike the spectacular and challenging Appalachian Trail. You'll never look at Little Debbie's treats again without thinking of Bryson, but most of all of Katz.
Only reason I didn't give it 5 stars: the last 75 pages could have been scratched. Once the non-dynamic duo left the Trail, I lost interest.
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Summary: Simply a Great Book - You Can Smell The Woods
Review: My introduction to Bill's books were in Australia. I had never heard of him before. I was in the airports first in Sydney, then in Melbourne and there were these giant stacks of books about Australia with yellow covers (his "Down Under"). It seemed like everyone was buying a copy. I followed suit and bought mine. Since then I have ben hooked. It is just a great book with a lot of humour. One gets totally involved with the story of the trail, the preparation, his unlikely friend who arrived 100% unprepared for the walk but then made it, and the camping and the snow, and the rain, and the breaks from the trail to come into some town or hamlet on the route. It is all very good. Since then I have bought most of his books, but still have not got the nerve to walk the trail myself but sometimes I dream that I am making the hike. That's how good this book is. Easy five stars. Jack in Toronto
Rating: 
Summary: Was expecting more humor
Review: Don't get me wrong...I did find humor in this book, specifically the idiosyncratic Katz, but it was not the gut-clenching hilarity I had been promised by friends. I did enjoy the historical side-bars Bryson took that helped me form a clearer opinion of the U.S. Forest Service.
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Summary: Great for those who have experienced the AT.
Review: Some 22 years ago, as a recent high school graduate, I and a few of my classmates hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail for the first time. It was one of the best experiences of my life and Bill Bryson has allowed me to relive my youth. I am at that tenuous age (do the math) looking for that "City Slicker" adventure and just might consider embarking once again on the AT. Before I do though, I am going to stock-up on other Bill Bryson titles.
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Summary: Let's Walk through the Appalachain Trail (AT) with Bryson
Review: This book represented my introduction to Bill Bryson's writing and I liked it. Many readers have become loyal fans of this accomplished writer, so I am not a deluded pioneer blazing any trail, real or imaginary. However, some readers I spoke with about this book admitted they could not read the entire book; in other words, they skipped big chunks of the "WALK in the WOODS". I conceded that Bryson is an accomplished and successful writer, but this book is not perfect ... except for the first half! At first I laughed uproariously and often, but then I began to raise my eyebrows at Bryson's criticism of other hikers, fast food, and government agencies in the middle pages of "A Walk in the Woods". Bryson set off to hike the 2,200 (or 2,199?) miles of America's popular Appalachian Trail (AT) with Stephen Katz, a friend he had not seen in twenty years. Katz ends up a hero (at least for me) because he is described as inept for the challenge and yet he brought a unique sense of humor, determination and wit (expletives apart) to the trail. It was not one continuous hike and when Katz returned to Iowa to a construction job for a few months, Bryson and I missed him. When Katz (returns and) gets lost in Maine at the hike's end, I became as worried as Bryson. The hardest section of the AT for our team came when they reached Maine, not only because of the taxing mountain terrain but also because they needed to wade across ponds and streams in an unexpectedly muggy spell. The middle two-fifths of this book is rather tedious reading: my Mount Katahdin! Need I say that Katz was in Iowa for these chapters? The brief conversations between these sometimes very tired hikers yielded insight and light upon everything from beer to bears. Without Katz's pragmatism and repartee, Bill Bryson becomes preachy. However, he passes the big test with flying colors. My test was to ask if I had learned anything useful about hiking the AT. I immediately listed that I would take excellent maps, water filters, extra clothes and a jacket irrespective of the season, plus the advice (too late for Katz, perhaps), "You should never leave the trail, Stephen." (p.266). The book is informative about flora and fauna on the AT, especially when Bryson delves into accounts of ice ages, glaciers and geology. He writes authoritatively about the small towns of America. We also learn that "it takes about five months, and five million steps, to walk the trail from end to end." (p.8). And that the AT is America's trail, even though there are longer or perhaps more beautiful trails that were made before and since the 1930s. The one criticism of the book already alluded to is that Bryson is too long-winded on topics such as the dangers of commercialism. He beats about the bushes (literally!) and is critical of the Forest Service that operates like a logging and road-building service. Or is this merely Bryson's innocuous crime of padding? In any event, I recommend this book to those who need an introduction to the AT, its unique plant and mammalian life - where one sees more species in one small section than in all of Europe. I appreciated Bryson's admission at the end: "I had come to realize that I didn't have any feelings towards the AT that weren't confused and contradictory. I was weary of the trail, but still strangely in its thrall; found the endless slog tedious but irresistible; grew tired of the boundless woods but admired their boundlessness; enjoyed the escape from civilization and ached for its comforts". A.S. DEO (Ph.D)
Director, Holistic Institute of Education (Boston)
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Summary: most entertaining book I ever read
Review: This was the most entertaining book I ever read. I was on a kayak camping trip by myself and this book got me through the boring nights. Even though I was using up my lantern fuel reading I just couldn't put the book down. I'm not really sure If bill bryson actually hiked the trail but he was very convincing. I'd like to find another book like this that covers the adirondack mountains.
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Summary: The first reviewer got it wrong - this is a very funny book
Review: A Walk in the Woods is a very well written, informative, and really really funny book. I don't know where the first reviewer on this page got his perceptions from -- the humor that Bryson pokes at fellow travellers is gentle, not vicious, and more often than not, Bryson pokes far more fun at himself and his companion Katz than at others around them. Bryson is a perceptive, deeply gifted humorous writer, and it seems his brand of irony and observations of human nature are wasted on some! The language he uses -- "splendid" "delightful" "capital" -- shows his 20-odd years spent in Britain and lends a musical, charming tone to his narrative. And like many Brits, his humor is often deadpan. There's a wonderful emotional variation in his storytelling: the trail affects the two men's relationship in all kinds of ways as their hike stretches into weeks. I ended the book not thinking that Bryson and Katz are "lame" for not trekking the whole trail, but instead admired their spirit and recognized how shaken they were by the experience that made them ultimately decide to cut their trip short. To me, the end was hardly an anti-climax but a perfect acknowledgement of the sometimes dark power of nature. I think it makes a more powerful story for two middle aged men to hike 897 miles in both North and South parts of the trail, and ultimately concede they had enough for the time being, than for them to have completed the whole 2000 miles of the Appalachian Trail over some 9 months -- because this way, they stay resilient yet fallible, and because this way, the woods win. As it should be.
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Summary: First 100 pages FANTASTIC, the rest? Well......
Review: The first 100 pages or so were incredible; telling of a journey that only a true hiker can appreciate. I was so into the book; the book drew me in and kept me in for a little while, but then it deflated, kind of hte like Bill Bryson did when he decided he didn't have to do the whole Appalachian Trail but would just do parts of it, and sleep in town whenever instead of camping. He never even finishes the trail!!! I say this not to ruin the ending, but to prevent the misery. It's like he had a good story and could have told it in the first 100 pages but felt he needed to ramble just a little more. In the end, I would recommend this book...just don't bother with the end.
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