Rating: 
Summary: wonderful for armchair travelers!
Review: this book is by far, one of my favorites! Bryson's aches and pains of renewing his "woodsman", nature romping, laid back, and sometimes just damn lazy self, is refreshing after reading so many "gun ho" adventurers. i could almost feel the humiliation of crossing the lakes, and stumbling, while some young guys just trudged right along. from a female point of view, the book makes for very "beleiveable" reading, not containing the excentric egos of most travel writers... try the trip again Bill, and send me the manuscript. i'd read it with delight...
Rating: 
Summary: A simple, entertaining read.
Review: As a former backpacker, I read this book not as a tutorial, or as a grand statement of purpose and dedication, but to be entertained for a few minutes every day. That is exactly what I got. An enjoyable read without any pretense or attempts at grand statements. I sent it to my brother and he enjoyed it as much as I did.I came to AMAZON to look for other Bryson titles.
Rating:
Summary: A nearly flawless tribute to life and its ironies
Review: Bill Bryson is a national treasure. Few American writers today possess his wit, depth, clarity of thought and sense of adventure. Being a serious hiker and lover of the outdoors, I could not put this book down. Bryson's perceptions are uncanny, and his insights into some of the criminal land and park mismanagement that has occurred in this country over the past century are invaluable. The entire book is presented with a very light and at times laugh-at-loud-in-public narrative, yet the messages offered are deceivingly deep and very worthy of mass consideration. It is quite obvious that Bryson loves America, but is very disappointed by the glaring stupidity with which it unfortunately has been infiltrated. I found one minor error in the book -- on page 230, Bryson states that New Hampshire's Mt. Washington is the highest point north of the Smokies and east of the Rockies. In fact, the highest point in the US east of the Rockies is South Dakota's Harney Peak, which reaches an elevation of 7,242 feet in the Black Hills. North Carolina's Mt. Mitchell, the highest point in the Smokies, reaches only 6,684 feet, while Mt. Washington comes in at 6,288 feet. This book gets my highest recommendation. A must read for anyone that cherishes beauty, wisdom, and a great laugh.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing
Review: After 10 years' active duty in the Army, including a year in Vietnam, I've heard all the four-letter words I need for the rest of my life. I certainly didn't expect to find them all through a book on the Appalachian Trail. When I walk in the woods, I look for peace and beauty; I don't want to have to keep my eyes on the ground the whole time to avoid stepping in something that stinks. I returned my copy and got my money back. (The one star is the minimum rating accepted.)
Rating:
Summary: Very enjoyable, but I understand some of the low ratings
Review: I have been considering a thru-hike of the AT or Pacific Crest Trail and found this book to more helpful than the numerous other guide-type books I have read. Bryson's sensibilities, observations, and humor have helped me examine the realities and rationale for such an undertaking. His book has certainly not been inspirational, but it is funny and entertaining. Plus, the physical and emotional aspects of the hike really came alive for me. I can understand some of the criticisms I've read in other reviews. It probably helps if you share the author's environmental and political views (which I thought were balanced), sense of humor, and age bracket. This book earned its 5-star rating.
Rating:
Summary: Committed to what?
Review: About halfway though the book, after a month-long break, Bryson unexpectedly decides to drive to different points on the trail and to do a series of small hikes. This decision underscores the author's lack of sincerity and lack of commitment to the entire venture. He justifies this change of plans by noting that "it is almost impossible to .... get on and off the trail without assistance." Yet, at various points in the trip, he and Katz take taxis all over creation. The AT crosses roads at many places along its route. Couldn't Bryson have taken a taxi to a drop off-point, if he was really intent on resuming the hike? These day-hikes provide a lot of material for the last half of the book. Bryson was very strongly committed to something, although it was not to hiking the AT. How about to publishing another book....
Rating: 
Summary: Go try again!
Review: Had the author had not revealed his age, I could have guessed it's range myself. It would have to be between 45-55; the baby-boomer years. Now, I am in that age group myself and have many friends who are as well. Most of these people have pride in themselves and in their accomplishments. But there are an inordinate number of people in this group who are like the author. They were born in too comfortable a time, to WWII generation parents who had been through the Great Depression and a horrible war, who had an excellent work ethic, and who thought their accomplishments were more important than the "journey." Many of the children rejected their parents way of thinking and decided accomplishments didn't matter. I don't find this attitude to be macho, as one reviewer suggested. Many quiet, unassuming people have pride in their achievements and would never write about things they weren't able to do in such a swaggering tone. This includes as many women as it does men. Bryson reminds me of a lot of people who had a sixties mentality when I attended college in the early 70s. They never did much of anything, but they knew something about everything and, secure in this knowledge, they felt superior to everyone else. Unfortunately, in America, books about failure are currently more popular than books about success. I would hate to see this country go though hard times again, but it would sure bring us all back to reality.
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: A book about a journey never finished, the author must spend about 1/3 of the time justifying his recurring decisions to drop out of things that are too difficult. The book consists of a series of abortive episodes that start a journey, make a few pithy comments about the trail and its denizens, stick in some "relevant facts" about the trail drawn from better books on the subject, then tortuously justify the author's decisions to quit each particular objective. As these failed objectives keep piling up and the author spends more and more time arguing why his quitting this part of the journey or that part is OK (and that, in reality, he DID actually achieve his objective if you look at it in some convoluted way), you feel him changing from being simply tiresome to genuinely insincere. The audiobook version I listened to was especially bad because of the author's mistake in choosing himself as the reader -- his voice underscores the image presented by the book, that of an aloof, self-centered character who can justify anything he does, who can hike a couple spots in the Appalachian Trail and then triumphantly (over the last 10 minutes of the tape) proclaim that "I DID hike the Appalachian Trail!" At least the audiobook was abridged.
Rating:
Summary: Not for the Patagonia Catalogue crowd
Review: Bryson has a great wit and a warm touch which make this a wonderful story of delightfully imperfect characters set against a background of the AT. I was slightly disappointed by his and Katz's decision to abandon their initial plan to thru-hike, but, then I realize that Life is an endless series of compromises, high hopes and disappointments. After reading their packing list in the opening chapters, it is amazing that these unlikely adventurers managed to trod over 870 miles without a fatality. I have to disagree strongly with the reviewer who took issue with the final sentence of the book. To me, its the reviewer's "Ready, Set, Achieve" mentality where only the goal or the bottom line is worthy of consideration that sometimes makes American culture such a Wasteland. It IS the journey, after all, not the destination that really counts. There are enough macho-man blood and guts heroic adventure books out there. It's nice to read an adventure tale written by the rest of us.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny, light reading
Review: A light, quick read with a lot of laughs thrown in. Sure, the ending is disappointing, but it's hard to get bored with any perspective of the AT.
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