A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

by Bill Bryson

book data

17,957 ratings, 4.01 average rating, 2,936 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		31%
4		43%
3		20%
2		3%
1		0%

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published

December 26th 2006 (first published 1997) by Anchor

binding

Mass Market Paperback, 416 pages

isbn

0307279464 (isbn13: 9780307279460)

description

The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majestic mountains, silent for...more

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01/31/07

erin rated it:

Read in December, 2006

recommends it for: Smug jerks, misanthropes, tourists

It's been a busy couple of weeks, so I thought I'd spent the last of my holiday indulging in a witty travelogue to set my feet itching. Unfortunately, I picked the wrong book. Years of declining the advice of the Bryson-worshipers, it seems, was not in vain.

I'm halfway through, and - like the author on the daunting trail - am unsure as to whether or not I can finish my task. Bryson sounds, to put it mildly, a real jerk. He's smug and superior, and spends most of the book complaining ...more

Like this review? yes (16 people liked it)

17 comments

09/15/07

Dylan rated it:

Read in January, 2001

recommends it for: Everyone

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 so-called "travel writing" genre-- the idea that someone goes somewhere and writes about it and ...more

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04/02/08

Paul Burton rated it:

Read in March, 2008

I live within a couple miles of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, and I have toyed with day hikes and weekend treks up and down the trail near home, so I picked up this book to glimpse the musings of Bill Bryson on the experience of doing the whole trail.

I've been somewhat drawn to Bryson for a while. Although I've never read any of his work, somehow I knew I would like his style. I did.

In a walk in the woods, Bryson manages to take you along with him and his burnt out b...more

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03/27/08

Suzanne rated it:

bookshelves: naturalist, new-england, nonfiction, travel

Has a copy to sell/swap

I have a friend in Vermont who spent his honeymoon hiking the Appalachian Trail. It took them 6 months, start to finish. They now live in a home powered by solar batteries. Like Bryson, their respect for nature is very real. This is an entertaining account of Bryson's experience and can vicariously give us a sense of what it might be like to live without the conveniences we have come to take for granted.

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11/03/07

LINDA rated it:

bookshelves: discovered-in-the-details, nature

Read in October, 2006

recommends it for: Nature Lovers

At the recomendation of one of my bosses I took this book along on a strenuous 10 mile backcountry hike in Shenandoah that was full of amazing mountain-top vistas, stream crossings, and beautiful rocky trails framed with fall folliage.

It is a hilarious book that recounts Byson's aventure of preparing for and hiking the entire length of the Appalachian Trail- which actually passes through Shenandoah just miles from where we were camping.

I had started reading the book in ...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

1 comment

10/12/07

Jake rated it:

(review of isbn 0767902521)

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: goal-oriented people

Finishing Part 1, I feel so let down. Bill and Katz have left the AT and gone their separate ways, promising to return end of summer. Now it's no secret they won't conplete the through-hike. I just about feel like giving up the remaining pages myself.

This is my first Bryson read, and it's everything I heard it would be. I like Bryson's sarcastic humor. It's chuckle out loud funny, mostly because I spent 1990-1993 section-hiking the AT. Been there--done that so to speak (except for th...more

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05/17/07

Jack rated it:

(review of isbn 0385408161)

bookshelves: jackrecommends, reallygoodstuff

Read in February, 2006

recommends it for: anyone still breathing

Imagine a grueling, four-month 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 Bryson’s "A Walk in the Woods." Bryson, a self-deprecating intelle...more Imagine a grueling, four-month 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 Bryson’s "A Walk in the Woods." Bryson, a self-deprecating intellectual of the first order, provides massive helpings of horse-laughing humor that are pleasantly painful to read. The compulsion to read aloud "Walk’s" 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 spent 20 years writing for British and American publications. In 1996 he 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 2,100-mile, mostly-wilderness 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 Walk’s 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 world’s 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 for 19 years. One night the three camp with seventeen Boy Scouts and three adult supervisors, “all charmingly incompetent.” After watching a night of the scout’s 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 the 470 million year-old 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 America’s interstate highway system," the National Park Service (“actually has something of a tradition of making things extinct"), and the Army Corps of Engineers (“they don’t 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 Bryson’s "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(less)

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01/28/08

Jasmin rated it:

bookshelves: general-fiction

Read in March, 2008

Bryson has a great sense of humor, and does a good job of capturing the quirkiness of backwood folk. However, I was sometimes frustrated by his viewpoints, which dampened my opinion and enjoyment of this book. For instance, Bryson says on page 199:

"To tell you the truth I was getting a little wearied of this [remote wilderness]. I know the Apalachian Trail is suposed to be a wilderness experience, and I accept that there are countless places where it would be a tragedy for it to...more

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01/04/08

Steve rated it:

bookshelves: nonfiction-adventure

Read in April, 2007

At the dawn of the twentieth-century, journalists, travel writers, social workers, and adventure seekers descended on the Appalachian Mountains in droves, expecting to find a land of violent, uneducated "hillbillies" whose primary occupations were distilling illegal alcohol and killing one another. That they were mistaken in their assumptions has been demonstrated time and again, in both popular and academic literature.

Almost 100 years later, writer Bill Bryson took a walk...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comment

10/01/07

Bobbi rated it:

Read in January, 2007

recommends it for: hikers and people who enjoy humor

Bill Bryson is a terrific writer. The first half of this book not only hooked me on Bill Bryson's writing, it had me laughing out loud in ways I can only describe as embarrassing. Why, then, did I give it a lowly three stars? I averaged the first and second halves of the book. I even rounded up, just to give Bryson his props. I'd give the two halves of the book separate ratings if I could.

His premise -- two out of shape middle aged guys attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail -- i...more

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03/09/09

Ben Williams rated it:

Read in June, 2006

i always tell people that they will either love this (and most of his other) books to death, or that they will find them utterly unamusing. i find them hilarious. i have never laughed so hard while reading a book as with Bryson's books. Give it a go--you'll know after the first few chapters whether you share his witty, tasteful sense of humor or not:)

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04/27/09

Ken-ichi rated it:

(review of isbn 0767902521)

Read in May, 2009

Undoubtedly an amusing, breezy read, full of the kind of fun and hilarity all the blurbs lead you to expect. For instance, "Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old." That had me laughing on the train.

I can't say I liked this book quite as much as some of my friends seem to. On the one hand, I've had at least 1 semi-grueling backpacking experience with a companion who was wholly and...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

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11/12/08

Eric_W rated it:

Read in January, 2005

This is a wonderful book to listen to while traveling with a group of people. It will keep you interested and laughing heartily all the way to your destination.

Bryson decided one day that it would be a neat thing to hike the Appalachian Trail – all 2,160 miles of it (although the actual length varies depending on the page you might be on in the official guides or what year it is, because the trail is constantly being changed and moved).

Deciding to do a little research, ...more This is a wonderful book to listen to while traveling with a group of people. It will keep you interested and laughing heartily all the way to your destination.

Bryson decided one day that it would be a neat thing to hike the Appalachian Trail – all 2,160 miles of it (although the actual length varies depending on the page you might be on in the official guides or what year it is, because the trail is constantly being changed and moved).

Deciding to do a little research, he soon discovered that there are certain dangers to walking the trail, including bears, assorted diseases, and “loony hillbillies destabilized by gross quantities
of impure corn liquor and generations of profoundly unbiblical sex.”

Henry Thoreau, that great 18-month adventurer into the wilds a short
walk from his town, helped create a great nostalgia for the woods, even though, as Bryson notes, he could “stroll to town for cakes and barley wine, but when he experienced real wilderness, on a visit to Katahdin in 1846, he was unnerved to the core.”

Bryson decided to take Stephen Katz along for the trip. Katz is a character who shows up in several of Bryson’s other books. He’s fat and
lazy --he throws away their water supply to make his pack lighter-- and soon Bryson discovers that this may not be the little walk in the
woods he had expected. After several weeks on the trail, in rather miserable weather, they arrive in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. There, he finds a map of the entire trail, about six inches wide and four feet long, and discovers to his horror that he and Katz have only traveled two inches on the map. “My hair had grown more than that,” he reports.

Even though it’s a very funny book, Bryson makes several serious observations, discussing the mismanagement of the U.S. Forest Service, an agency that builds more roads than any construction company; it supervises and has built more than 378,000 miles of roads, more than eight times the total mileage of the interstate highway system. Most of
these are to service the needs of logging companies that need to get in to chop down more trees. Bryson also discusses the American ambivalence toward nature. We revere it, but are afraid of it as well. The woods are beautiful, but they “choke off views and leave you
muddled and without bearings. They make you feel small and confused and vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs.”

A lot of wilderness still exists in the United States, as he discovers on a section of totally uninhabited wilderness the trail traverses in Maine (he decided to do short sections of the trail after his epiphany in Gatlinburg).

This week-long march leaves the hikers completely on their own and is nowhere near any kind of help should one get into trouble (the AT kills several people yearly). There’s still a lot of nature out there; only 2 percent of the United States is classified as built up and 15,600,000 square miles are completely wooded, without a single resident, and remain impressive despite our mismanagement of the ecology and massive logging.

Bryson ended up walking a total of 870 miles of the trail – not an inconsequential feat. Of the two thousand or so who make the attempt
every year, only about two hundred finish. (less)

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07/01/07

Michelle rated it:

(review of isbn 0552997021)

Read in August, 2007

Since I was going to be spending six days in Virginia (Roanoke) and Tennessee (Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge), I thought it would be fitting to read Bryson's book about trekking the Appalachian Trail.

I figured that this book would be much like his others--full of comedic prose and a smidgen of factiod thrown in to keep nerds like me happily reading. In some ways, that was there, but it was also rich in history and statistics about the various areas of the trail from Georgia to Maine....inc...more

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10/16/07

Emily rated it:

Read in February, 2007

I found this book to be very funny and entertaining. However, I felt that his research and "editorializing" about natural resource management was somewhat lopsided. He is extremely critical of federal agencies such as the National Park Service and the US Forest Service, who really accomplish a lot with little financial resources. His assertion that the Forest Service's job is to merely cut down trees and build roads shows a general lack of knowledge concerning the science behind for...more

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06/17/07

Trin rated it:

(review of isbn 0767902513)

bookshelves: american-lit, travel

Read in June, 2007

Reread. I was just in the mood. It was interesting, because the last time I read this book I had just discovered Bill Bryson and I read a whole bunch of his books all at once; this time I got to see more clearly how this one stood out from the pack. It's definitely not my favorite—I think that would probably be Notes From a Small Island, if only because I am equally bewitched by the subject matter—but it's a solid effort all around. I think the best stuff is the stuff about Stephen Katz, w...more

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05/23/07

Gail rated it:

This is my first book of Bryson and already I'm in love. What a fantastically witty writer and his job is what every journalist (whether they realize it or not) wishes it could be -- traveling the world and doing research on the places he visits. The first 40 pages of this book are laugh-out loud funny (seriously, there is one line where Bryson talks about his fear upon encountering a bear where I was crying in bed) but the book, though still VERY humorous, tames down a little once he begins his...more

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12/01/08

Shelagh rated it:

Really fun book about backpacking, setting goals, and enjoying friends. Backpacking is the strangest of activities I have ever participated in. It is pure hell, which during the hike I am frequently repeating to myself, "what the hell am I doing here", yet everytime when the hike is finished it is the best time I have ever had. Bryson does a fabulous job illustrating this bizaar dichotomy

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12/04/08

Andrea rated it:

bookshelves: travel

Bryson is a funny writer, but this book is surely his gem in the comic travel genre. While the author cannot possibly be a slouch, given what he actually achieves, he writes from the perspective of a bumbler who barely manages to make it through. An adventure book for sure, but more than anything laugh out loud funny.

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07/25/08

Marie rated it:

(review of isbn 0767902521)

bookshelves: environmental-themes, nonfiction, travel

Read in January, 2008

recommended to Marie by: Shelia DS

My friend Shelia urged me to read Bill Bryson, and he's an author I'd always intended to read but had not gotten around to yet. She recommended that I start with "A Walk in the Woods," and it was a great recommendation.

It's not a book I would normally be drawn to...I'm not a hard core hiker, I've never been to the Appalachian Trail, and the plot just didn't appeal to me more than other books.

But the sign of a great writer is his or her ability to make nonfiction...more

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"When I awoke it was daylight. The inside of my tent was coated in a curious flaky rime, which I realized after a moment was all of my nighttime snores, condensed and frozen and pasted to the fabric, as if into a scrapbook of respiratory memories." More quotes...