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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
adventurous
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
I was underwhelmed with this. I do think Bryson pales in comparison to sports/endurance writers far less known. And they didn’t even finish the trail! I know there’s arguably a message there about the journey not the destination blah blah blah but I still felt indignantly ripped off.
In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson writes about his trek along the Appalachian Trail (AT) in a manner that is personable, funny, and enlightening to people who don't know much at all about the AT. I felt as though he were my amusing friend, sharing with me personally a tale of his expedition from Georgia to Maine. He cracked me up numerous times throughout his telling, although I could see how style of writing might get on people's nerves rather than humor them, but I found it funny, anyway.
Bryson does a great job at simultaneously educating and entertaining, interspersing facts about the AT, the American Civil War, the flora and fauna of the trail, his disdain for the National Park Service, survival tips and various hiking horror stories amidst his witty story-telling. He illuminates both the good and bad aspects of hiking, shedding light on how "life takes on a neat simplicity" (ch. 6) and the profound, elusive sense of fulfillment hiking brings, as well as the grueling nature of climbs and the state of disrepair and neglect in some national parks. While it is a relatively dated book (published 1998), I was surprised when Bryson revealed just how much of American nature has gone extinct and is currently endangered due to a lack of care, and more apparently, funding.
As he says, it is often the case (at least in the US) that nature is something we either "ruthlessly subjugate" or "deify, treating it as something holy and remote, a thing apart" (ch. 15). Nature isn't something many of us experience regularly, albeit on vacations. I came to respect nature more through his novel, and am filled with a desire to go hiking one day myself (maybe just to lay my eyes on Foxfire, the bioluminescent fungi!). Although, I don't see myself trekking the AT -- I feel like this novel was ample enough for my taste.
There was a middle section where Bryson hikes alone without his partner, Katz, and his style of writing shifts to a more informative tone, which felt a bit sluggish. On the whole, it was a good book, one I might read again in the future. I would rate 4.5/5 if I could, but for the entertaining aspects I give it a 5/5.
Bryson does a great job at simultaneously educating and entertaining, interspersing facts about the AT, the American Civil War, the flora and fauna of the trail, his disdain for the National Park Service, survival tips and various hiking horror stories amidst his witty story-telling. He illuminates both the good and bad aspects of hiking, shedding light on how "life takes on a neat simplicity" (ch. 6) and the profound, elusive sense of fulfillment hiking brings, as well as the grueling nature of climbs and the state of disrepair and neglect in some national parks. While it is a relatively dated book (published 1998), I was surprised when Bryson revealed just how much of American nature has gone extinct and is currently endangered due to a lack of care, and more apparently, funding.
As he says, it is often the case (at least in the US) that nature is something we either "ruthlessly subjugate" or "deify, treating it as something holy and remote, a thing apart" (ch. 15). Nature isn't something many of us experience regularly, albeit on vacations. I came to respect nature more through his novel, and am filled with a desire to go hiking one day myself (maybe just to lay my eyes on Foxfire, the bioluminescent fungi!). Although, I don't see myself trekking the AT -- I feel like this novel was ample enough for my taste.
There was a middle section where Bryson hikes alone without his partner, Katz, and his style of writing shifts to a more informative tone, which felt a bit sluggish. On the whole, it was a good book, one I might read again in the future. I would rate 4.5/5 if I could, but for the entertaining aspects I give it a 5/5.
funny
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
So insufferably smug, condescending and mean-spirited—Bryson’s wittier-than-thou routine wears thin fairly quickly, and honestly wipes out any pleasure, interest, excitement or mystery associated with going into the woods. His true failure is not the abortion of the journey, but rather his inability to let go of his exclusivism; one would imagine that spending more than one night in the woods—in its immensity and chilling wilderness that melts all social divergences and boring stereotypes—would humble anyone, but it seems that his ego is intangible, so I’ll give him that. At least some of the anecdotes were interesting and the bears on my cover were cute.
adventurous
funny
informative
medium-paced
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
adventurous
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced