Rating: 
Summary: Take me with you, Bill Bryson!
Review: "A Walk in the Woods" is highly enjoyable escapism for the reader. The cover hints at the contents: ain't nature lovely? But that ole bear may gobble you up if you're not careful. Yeah, Billy Boy spills some prejudices against the Southern thang but his viewpoint was as funny to me (a Southerner) as the rest of the book. I didn't put this book down until I'd read the whole thing. Then I picked it up and read it again. And then I went to Georgia and hiked that section of the Appalachian Trail -- inspired by Billy Boy Bryson and "A Walk in the Woods." (Bill, Wes Wisson sends his regards.)
Thanks for the excellent book, Mr. Bryson! I want to go with you wherever you travel.
Rating: 
Summary: Adventure Travel for the Rest of Us
Review: Despite effusive praise from my family (ah, the curse of high expectations!), I actually enjoyed "A Walk in the Woods" a great deal. It's an engaging quick read with a lively cast of characters and great descriptive prose. In several places it is hilariously, laugh-out-loud funny. Bryson keeps up a casual conversational style, so I didn't find his negative comments on people and places particularly nasty, just honest. Then again, I'm not from rural Georgia (which he lambastes pretty darn seriously).
I also appreciated Bryson's willingness to attack, directly and at some length, the failings of the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service. Very few people, myself included, know the details of how these institutions are run, but it's obvious that they have some serious failings. Bryson elucidates the problems with NFS and NPS and illustrates how seriously they imperil the few remaining wild areas in America. Bryson manages to keep the tone light enough that even a committed nature-lover like myself didn't end up weeping over the fate of our forests. But I consider it worthwhile to own this book just so that I can re-read those sections from time to time when I feel like stewing in righteous indignation and writing some letters to my Senator.
The reason that this book really appeals to me, however, is that it's a story about NORMAL PEOPLE going off to try and do something extraordinary, and what happens is what NORMALLY happens - they fail, but they have an interesting experience. As Bryson makes clear, the vast majority of potential thru-hikers on the Appalachian Trail don't make it - a third drop out before they even leave Georgia. And Bryson and his companion Katz are out-of-shape, middle-aged, infrequent hikers - not prime candidates for success.
Now, I'm a huge fan of "adventure travel" narratives - mountain climbers, polar explorers, the whole bit. It's exciting to read about near-superhuman individuals going up against near-impossible odds in conditions you would never DREAM of attempting - and succeeding. But occasionally these narratives make me feel a little, well, insignificant and incompetent. There's only so many times you can read "If you haven't climbed K2, you haven't really lived" or "When I finally finished my cross-Canadian barefoot trek, my life suddenly took on new meaning" without feeling that sitting on a couch READING about this stuff makes you a big old WUSSY.
So what a relief to finally read Bryson's narrative, where two guys take a crack at a great challenge and do what most of us would probably do. They give it a good shot, realize they're in over their head, and salvage the experience as best they can. They have a lot of amazing experiences, learn a lot, and have great stories to tell (obviously, book-worthy stories). I can IDENTIFY with these guys, huffing and puffing along the trail and NOT loving every darn minute of it. They aren't wussies, because they dared to try this - but they don't make ME feel like a wussy either.
Some might argue that Bryson's attitude of "I didn't make it all the way, but I hiked the Appalachian Trail nonetheless" is insulting to those who DID make it all the way. But I think you'd have to be pretty insecure about your amazing accomplishment to be upset when someone FAILS to achieve what you have, but HAS A GOOD TIME ANYWAY. Give me a break. Successful thru-hikers are welcome to write a book about their experience; if they're a skillful writer like Bryson, it will probably be a good book. And I would read that book, and probably enjoy it.
But Bryson reminds me of myself, and his experiences resonate for me, and for all those people who CAN imagine themselves stumbling through the woods, sweaty and exhausted and cursing, and CAN'T imagine themselves clinging resolutely to an ice-shelf on Mount Everest. Things didn't go the way Bryson planned, but he wrote a book anyway - a GOOD book - and he still has a sense of humor in the retelling of his misadventures. I can only hope to someday do the same - since I sure won't be making it to the South Pole anytime soon.
Rating: 
Summary: AT 'lite'
Review: I disliked the book and Bryson.
I found Bryson to be unbelievable. I actually found myself rechecking the cover to make sure this was supposed to be non-fiction. Bryson appears to have a real gift for exaggeration, if not outright lying. Early on, when we meet his friend Katz, Bryson explains that Katz must eat doughnuts around the clock or else he will begin to seize--some sort of brain injury from Katz past drug use, Bryson tells us. This sparked skepticism in my mind that lingered throughout the book. Almost every character Bryson describes thereafter has equally cartoonish features. But that is where he gets most of his laughs: describing how ridiculous and stupid everyone else. When that isn't enough, he resorts to adolescent jokes about characters from the movie 'Deliverance.'
His blurbs about geology, the Forest Service, environmentalism, history, etc. are generally superficial, sometimes incorrect, and certainly not original. There is nothing here that hasn't been hashed around many times before. His attempts at hiking small sections of the trail later on are boring. One day ended in Bryson not even able to find the trail.
If it doesn't matter that Bryson is unable or unwilling to finish the trail, why does he feel it necessary to drive along portions he decided not to hike? Why does he give lame reasons for giving up at various stages? Why does he claim to have truly hiked the AT in the end? I'm not sure he deserves to be on the trail. It is clear that Bryson doesn't appreciate the AT. Complaining about the endless trees and lack of quaint towns like you would find hiking in Luxemburg, he seems most happy in the comfort of a Holiday Inn Express or gorging at a Applebees. Did he really not understand what he was getting in to in the beginnning?
Rating:
Summary: A Good Read for Someone with Experience
Review: I read the book before I started backpacking and used Bryson's descriptions for making my decision on where to tackle a section of the AT. I went back later on to read it again, and enjoyed it more the second time. If you have gone through the same sorts of experiences on the AT, met similar people, been in the same areas, and delt with the same problems, its an excellent read. Granted it slows down in part two, but if you're interested in some history and background of the AT it doesn't matter. Part one a must read for those who would like a taste of the AT. Bryson is honest and at times very hilarious about his experiences and lack of skill. You should not read it if backpacking or the Appalachian Trail is of no interest to you.
Rating:
Summary: Bryson's best
Review: I've read several of Bryson's travel-oriented books, and this is by far my favorite. Don't expect a detailed guidebook telling you everything you need to know about hiking the Appalachian Trail. Instead, expect to be hilariously entertained by the experiences of Bryson, his hiking companion, and the people they encounter while venturing out on several sections of the AT. Be warned however: as you read, you will probably laugh out loud on a regular basis, and people nearby will certainly give you strange looks!
For an inside look at how a not-so-fit person might experience the AT, this is a great book to pick up.
Rating:
Summary: An Unforgettable Experience
Review: If you are looking for an interesting, entertaining, humorous read, grab your hiking boots and hit the trail with Bill Bryson in his book, A Walk in the Woods. Bryson, looking for a new writing subject, decides to hike the Appalachian Trail over a summer hoping that it will be an experience that he can successfully write about. The trail stretches 2,100 miles over North Amercia (from Georgia to Maine).
Throughout this book, Bryson intertwines the many humorous experiences him and Katz (his friend) have while on the AT (Appalachian Trail) with interesting background information of the different sights and stories that they saw and heard while hiking. Also Bryson has a great way of giving the reader interesting facts about the AT, and about the nature/wildlife of the Eastern United States.
After reading this book, one can't help but be intrigued by the comforting, beautiful mountain woods and trail the Bryson speaks of in this book. As Bryson admits his overall growing interest and appreciation for nature after his hiking adventure, it only plants a seed of curiosity and excitement in his readers that make them want to experience that too.
Rating:
Summary: Just what I have come to expect from Bryson-Excellence!
Review: It would seem that Bill Bryson and I enjoyed many of same idyllic misconceptions about the Appalachian Trail that only the uninitiated can harbor. The difference though is that while I got to be dispelled of those fancies sitting in my comfy leather chair Bryson got to learn the hard way... the extremely hard way, by actually attempting to hike it.
Having spent my early childhood near the tail in Virginia the Appalachian had always been something that would tumble through my mind from time to time- something of a distant symbolic power for me. With that background A Walk in the Woods was the perfect Christmas gift and a great read. Bryson and his ill prepared sidekick Stephen Katz provide an often funny, occasionally poignant but always engaging narrative. While the narrative is studded all along with well researched nuggets of history, lore and science as is characteristic of other Bryson books I have read the additional elements of the book that come from the bond that develops between Bryson and Katz was something new to me from his work but blinded in nicely.
The more I read of Bryson's work the more I enjoy it-regardless of if hiking, nature writing, Bryson or the Appalachian Trail itself drew you to this book you will not be disappointed!
Rating:
Summary: Bad for several, Good for some?
Review: My thoughts, Overall it's fun and relatively quick to read being 304pgs. I often found myself laughing out loud and relating too many of his experiences. His droll sense of humor is great (reminds me of my uncle) I would recommend reading part one, part two lost its way a bit and left me feeling rather disappointed. In the desensitized, demoralized and stupefied Americas that we live; I found it rather amusing to read that a small disposable few were really offended by this book?? Although the reprehensible littering done by these two delinquents along their journey was meant to be funny it did upset me. Promoting the simple concept of keeping our planet clean by not littering would have been welcomed in this back to nature book.
Rating:
Summary: Experiencing a very special part of America
Review: Subtitled, "Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail", the author, Bill Bryson, brings the reader along with him, a novice hiker, who, at the age of 44, has just returned to the United States after 20 years in England. He's been a journalist for British publications and has written several travel memoirs. Now it was time to experience a part of the America he left behind by hiking this famous trail.The Appalachian Trail consists of 2,100 rugged miles along the east coast and passes through 14 states from Georgia to Maine, built with the labor from public works in the 1930s. It has been re-routed slightly over the years and has never achieved the ideal which included many comfortable rest areas. Environmental disasters have taken its toil as well as the blunders and shortsightedness of governmental organizations. But it still exists as a challenge for hikers who often hike just a part of the trail. With a companion from his college days, the overweight and sometimes blundering Stephen Katz from Des Moines, Bryson starts out in Georgia with the plan of completing the entire trail. They know this is a challenge for them. Both of them are novices, and with a sense of depreciating humor, he shares his personal point of view with the reader -- his apprehensions, his fatigue, the people he meets, the places he visits and his companionship with his friend. Not is all deep woods, however, and their infrequent sojourns to towns where they can occasionally go to a restaurant and sleep in a motel are welcome relief before they pick up their packs again and once more walk all day and sleep in their tents at night. And then there is the part of the trail where they must sleep in rat-infested shelters with other hikers and well as weather conditions that include a roaring blizzard and icy conditions. My son-in-law has hiked part of the Appalachian trail and gave me this book. It gave me insight into some of the experiences he must have had. And it also made me yearn for an outdoor adventure myself. But whether you are a skilled outdoors person, or an armchair traveler like me, this book is a wonderful read.
Rating:
Summary: Tremendously funny - to all ages and nations
Review: This book is fascinating: on one hand you learn a lot about
the US-Eastern countryside, the famous Appalachian trail and its history...
On the other hand you can study nowaday people dreaming of wild life in the midst of a civilized country...
I had so much to laugh about the characters and situations described in this book and so had many members of my family, eg. my aunty (101 years old) and friends from all over the world..
Thank you Bill Bryson.
|
