Get Access A Walk In The Woods Constructed By Bill Bryson Available As Hardcover

a grueling, fourmonth wilderness trek along the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, Your guide: an intellectual, who lived half his life in England, well versed in geology, zoology, ecology and pretty much all of the other ologies.
Yet, this far from ordinary guide summons the sparkle of Twain, and of Billy Crystal, Picture all of this for a sense of what can be found inside the covers of Bill Brysons "A Walk in the Woods, " Bryson, a selfdeprecating intellectual of the first order, provides massive helpings of horselaughing humor that are pleasantly painful to read, The compulsion to read aloud "Walks" funnier passages to friends and family overwhelms, as does the desire to pass the book on to others after the warmth of the last page flickers.


Bryson grew up in Iowa, While in his twenties, he moved to England where he spentyears writing for British and American publications, Inhe and his family returned to the United States, settling in New Hampshire, One day, he “happened on a path that vanished into the wood on the edge of town, ” That path was a tiny segment of the Appalachian Trail: a continuous,mile, mostlywilderness trail along the spine of the Appalachian Mountains, Intrigued, Bryson thought, what better way to reacquaint himself with his native land, and at the same time: “It would get me fit after years of waddlesome sloth.
" After thorough research, Bryson determines his undertaking would be difficult, requiring a companion, Exhausting all of his best choices, Bryson settles on Steve Katz, an old high school buddy, Katz, an overweight and out of shape, X Files addicted, Snicker munching, surprisingly fetching sidekick becomes the focal point of much of Walks hilarity and pathos.


A number of unforgettable characters pop up along the trail, Most memorable is the gratingly obnoxious Mary Ellen, who after she had tagged along for several days, Bryson and Katz ditch using an elaborate deception.
“She was, as Katz forever termed her in a special tone of awe, a piece of work, " They encounter Bob, the worlds foremost authority on everything, Bryson and Katz spend several days with the delightful John Connolly, a New York schoolteacher who had been hiking the trail a bit at a time foryears.
One night the three camp with seventeen Boy Scouts and three adult supervisors, “all charmingly incompetent, ” After watching a night of the scouts ineptness: “Even Katz agreed that this was better than TV, "

Along the way, Bryson painlessly inserts lessons of history, geology, entomology, and more, We learn about the changes acid rain has brought to the wild, and he recounts the stories of the southern pine beetle, the smoky madtom and wooly adelgids, and about Daniel Boone, Henry David Thoreau and Stonewall Jackson.
Bryson delivers an extended geology lesson on the tectonic formation of themillion yearold Appalachian Mountains that palatably educates, While praising some of their employees, Bryson effectively and mercilessly bashes the U, S. Forest Service road builders for the logging industry “eight times the total mileage of Americas interstate highway system," the National Park Service “actually has something of a tradition of making things extinct", and the Army Corps of Engineers “they dont build things very well".


Bryson makes his environmental bent abundantly clear, But, his lessons rarely become preachy, They reflect the all too human predisposition to seek the easy way, the momentary thrill, and always at a cost, Without accusation, Bryson reminds us of those often easy to ignore environmental costs,

Bill Brysons "A Walk in the Woods" lovingly opens a window to “an America that millions of people scarcely know exists, ” There are problems to solve along this great, mountain forest trail, Yet, the air intoxicates. The sights are unforgetable. And the smile remains I have read most of Bill Bryson's books and they are all good excellent even, His gift is in his ability to detect the humor in any situation, Where you or I might see a man walking down the street he sees something, and articulates it so well, packed with humor, But this book is his best, The reason, I think, is that it takes him out of his element, His natural writing style is this socalled "travel writing" genre the idea that someone goes somewhere and writes about it and their time there.
But most "travel writers" don't hike over half of the AT, that's unheard of, And the fact that Bryson at middle age decided to take on such a task with no real background in backpacking, let alone for months at a time, is downright impressive.


So the premise of the book is already good before you even start reading, Then the book just blows you away, The man can describe nature with the best of them but his expertise is in describing human interactions, And, perhaps, that's why he chose the AT, There are indeed some

interesting people who decide to take the plunge and walk the trail from end to end, Among them are Stephen Katz, Bryson's sidekick from earlier adventures in France, who is now overweight and obsessed with junk food admittedly Katz gives Bryson ample material to work with.
Then there is the woman who hikes with them and camps with them for a few weeks, She acts as though they are the problem, forcing the partnership on her as it were, but we quickly discover that her own insecurities are at the root of her behavior.
Bryson navigates her personality in a delicate but oh so funny way, Whether you hike or not, laugh or not, enjoy Bryson or not you should read this it will change your mind or affirm what you already knew Bryson is the best at what he does.
I wanted to like Bill Brysons A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, Not sure what I was expecting from thisperhaps more about hiking on the actual AT and the reasons Bryson made this trekbut I was mostly disappointed.
It read like a series of travel brochures: heres the history of the region on this section of the trail, and now anotherThere was much more attention devoted to towns along the route than hiking the actual trail.
It was also disappointing that Bryson noted the historical stereotypes of Appalachian people and casually confirmed their stupidity without any real interaction not once but many times.
The smugness of his remarks was irritating, I still would like to hike the AT, but Bryson did little to illuminate what its really like to hike the trail except to offer that its not what most people expect.

I kind of surprised I liked this book at all, because:
a I read pathetically little nonfiction
b I've never read a travelogue
AND
c I'm only a fan of the Great Outdoors as long as I'm safely Indoors.




So, color me shocked that I not only finished this, but giggled my way through quite a bit of it! Bryson really is a pretty funny writer, and the way he captured his experience on the Appalachian Trail had me in tears a few times.
His fears about getting mauled by a bear among other things before he started off were especially hysterical, and maybe that's because I could see a lot of myself in his initial terror of spending so much time surrounded by.
. . NATURE!



Now, there was a decentsized chunk towards the middle of the book that I just had to grit my teeth and push on through.
Bryson's friend Katz wasn't with him during this portion, and the difference in the tone of the writing is really noticeable, Lots and lots and lots of mindnumbing details about the Trail, and very little of his experiences,
And while all of that sort of info is relevant to the book, it's also the main reason that I don't actively seek out nonfiction or travelogues.




Eventually, Katz comes back to finish out the hike, and the story vastly improves, but it never managed to recapture the humor or spirit that it had in the beginning.




But that's only MY opinion,
And I really did enjoy the last bits of the book a lot, Especially the moments between Katz amp Bryson there towards the end,
Overall, I'd say this was a winner, And even if the whole thing wasn't to my liking, the first half was an easystar read for me,
In fact, it made me want to call up my BFF to see if she wanted to take the kids camping this summer so we could poop near a waterfall!



You know, instead of meeting at a hotel on the beach and drinking ourselves silly while the kids play in the surf.

And then I thought about that sentence,
Bwahahahahahahaha!
No, Just no.
See you in Florida, Jill! I'll bring the blender!