A Walk in the Woods
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Bill Bryson
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Kristy
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Sep 17, 2007 07:13AM

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I've known some people who've through-hiked the trail and they tend to be so serious and intense about it - I LOVED that Bryson isn't. I know he exaggerates wildly, but the fact that he looks at everything through such a skewed lens just cracks me up.




I much prefer to listen to his books than to read them, now.
Sue - I hope you left the cherries for the bear. And commiserations on the loss of your chalet.




Can anyone recommend another Bryson book that is equal or near equal to A Walk in the Woods. I can'
t remember which book I tried, but it was not all that good in my opinion. It left me feeling disappointed after loving the Woods Walking book and perhaps I was expected something to live up to that hilarious read, which is why I was disappointed?
So any recommendations will be appreciated?
Best, Sue



Thanks for that info, Rachel. I'm going to pick that book up and look forward to reading it! Best, Sue


A Walk in the Woods is also a good one, definitely - my copy is so often being lent to friends that I'm sometimes surprised to see it on the shelf.
And the story of the scientific method of knowing the difference between brown bears and grizlies is hillarious!



Ok, maybe I should just ask people? Is there any Bryson book that they would not recommend? I remember buying one, years ago, and was soooooooooooooo disappointed, and cannot remember its name. Knowing what a great writer he is, even real good writers can be allowed a clunker now and then, eh? If someone can identify a bad Bryson book that they suffered through, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same book I'm thinking of and I will immediately remember that book's name!

TM

At Home is really the one that sort of dissapointed me a bit - not because the book is not good, but because the standards were set high and this one is not as funny as the other books. Bryson spoiled us, that's it.


TM"
That's it! That was the name of the book that I found unfunny and not a good Bryson read. Anyone want to borrow it? Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Talk about shameless marketing?....Has anyone checked out my book, A SIMPLICITY REVOLUTION: FINDING HAPPINESS IN THE NEW REALITY? I was just wondering how successful you thought my humor was, keeping in mind I'm writing about some pretty heavy topics like the growing disparity in income that tears at the social fabric of America's society?
Any comments would be appreciated, that is if you've read the book. Best, Sue



I like John McPhee's THE PINE BARRENS. It is not funny like Bryson's work, but it has a wonderful vignette of McPhee wandering through the woods (in the 1970s...) and stopping at a cabin to ask for a drink of water. He is met at the door by a man with a pork chop in hand and a knife and a raw onion in the other. This little incident alone makes the whole book worthwhile. And of course, the New Jersey history that this Jersey girl was unaware of her whole life until she had to discover it in a Baltimore library!!
Also, sadly, the New Jersey Pine Barrens no longer are the wilderness that they were, so it's nice to read about it in this account.



Totally agree a great read.....

Agreed, that book was great. As a late baby boomer I could relate to a lot of that book, even though it's about a decade before my own timeline.

I love how he slips in a cool, unusual history lesson into his prose, too.



Bryson does his research.



The first few chapters about his home that he bought were interesting then it became tedious for me.
I didn't enjoy parts of Small Island or the Europe book because I had extensively traveled where he traveled and I found most of his humor or complaints as sarcastic.
When I was planning my first trip completely around the world I was going to spend 2 weeks week in NZ and 4 weeks in AUS. I read Sunburned Country along with several other books about the history and contemporary life of Australia. The only part of that book I found incorrect or simply wrong in the way it described the area was the part about the capital of AUS, Canberra.
Having spent time there I wondered why he didn't get out of his hotel or the central area and see the actual city and not just plop down in the hotel bar and complain about the entire city based on a minimal number of actual in person experiences.
The SkyRocket Kid book was one of the funniest, where his previous sarcasim seemed to disappear. At least from my perspective.
This is the type of book that my wife and kids hide from me. When I read nature books, I hear the call of the wild and start answering. Like Buck, ancestral spirits summon me. But when I attempt to enthusiastically mimic that voice to my family, I have a mutiny on my hands or, more precisely, passive resistance of a flinty quality that would impress Gandhi.
An infantry captain affixes his bayonet and charges half-way to the enemy trench, only to realize that nobody is following him. The troops think him, quite possibly, mad. This happens whenever I read Edward Abbey, John Muir, Thoreau, or Lewis and Clark. My spirit guides command me to wilderness adventure. My family responds in unanimous Greek chorus, “the woods are lovely dark and deep, but you have promises to keep.”
So instead, I settled for a book about a comic attempt by two guys (like me) in their forties to hike the 2,200 mile Appalachian Trail during the spring/summer of 1997. Even as I laughed out loud, I wept silently for all that I have missed and all that has already been lost. I so badly wanted to be with Bryson and Katz, congenial trailmates both.
Afoot and light-hearted, we take to the open road. The pace is leisurely. We pause to study flora, fauna, geology, and regional lore. We meet a few crackpots along the way. Sometimes Bryson gets to preachin'. (He does not like the U.S. Forest Service, and the good citizens and tourists of Gatlinburg, TN, do not want to know what Bryson thought of them 15 years ago.)
Very quickly, I begin to have my doubts as to whether we are going to actually make the South-North (SONO thru-hike) to Mt. Kathadin before the snow makes New England impassable.
The hardest parts of the trail include: The Hundred-Mile Wilderness through dense forests and swollen rivers of northern Maine (so remote you need 10-day’s worth of food and water, which you must lug along with all gear); New Hampshire’s White Mountains (alpine and sub alpine elevations and erratic weather invite unexpected hypothermia even in summer). Pennsylvania’s rocky trail (“Rocksylvania”) makes it particularly dangerous to ankles. The Smoky Mountains, although scenic, are uncommonly steep for the east coast and limited accommodations must be shared with a multitude of tourists. Forget the bears, rodents in the shelters are the biggest threat from the animal kingdom.
This is not your ancestors’ U.S. Eastern forest. The AT is wilder today than when it was first blazed back in the 1920's because the government seized the surrounding farms, which reverted to the wild. Asian blight wiped out the Chestnut trees at the beginning of the century, killing one-fourth of all trees in the eastern USA. The ghost-town of Centralia, PA, was built upon anthracite coal deposits that have been burning underground for 50 years and will continue to burn for at least 250 more years making the surrounding land uninhabitable. ( I was astounded to learn that 50,000 U.S. miners were killed between the U.S. Civil War and World War I.)
It has long been a dream of mind to thru-hike the AT. Whenever it’s a damp, drizzly November in my soul, my heart takes to the wilderness, while my body remains imprisoned in comfort, convenience, circumstance, and inertia. Call me Ishmael.
[image error]"http://photo.goodreads.com/photos/133...
An infantry captain affixes his bayonet and charges half-way to the enemy trench, only to realize that nobody is following him. The troops think him, quite possibly, mad. This happens whenever I read Edward Abbey, John Muir, Thoreau, or Lewis and Clark. My spirit guides command me to wilderness adventure. My family responds in unanimous Greek chorus, “the woods are lovely dark and deep, but you have promises to keep.”
So instead, I settled for a book about a comic attempt by two guys (like me) in their forties to hike the 2,200 mile Appalachian Trail during the spring/summer of 1997. Even as I laughed out loud, I wept silently for all that I have missed and all that has already been lost. I so badly wanted to be with Bryson and Katz, congenial trailmates both.
Afoot and light-hearted, we take to the open road. The pace is leisurely. We pause to study flora, fauna, geology, and regional lore. We meet a few crackpots along the way. Sometimes Bryson gets to preachin'. (He does not like the U.S. Forest Service, and the good citizens and tourists of Gatlinburg, TN, do not want to know what Bryson thought of them 15 years ago.)
Very quickly, I begin to have my doubts as to whether we are going to actually make the South-North (SONO thru-hike) to Mt. Kathadin before the snow makes New England impassable.
The hardest parts of the trail include: The Hundred-Mile Wilderness through dense forests and swollen rivers of northern Maine (so remote you need 10-day’s worth of food and water, which you must lug along with all gear); New Hampshire’s White Mountains (alpine and sub alpine elevations and erratic weather invite unexpected hypothermia even in summer). Pennsylvania’s rocky trail (“Rocksylvania”) makes it particularly dangerous to ankles. The Smoky Mountains, although scenic, are uncommonly steep for the east coast and limited accommodations must be shared with a multitude of tourists. Forget the bears, rodents in the shelters are the biggest threat from the animal kingdom.
This is not your ancestors’ U.S. Eastern forest. The AT is wilder today than when it was first blazed back in the 1920's because the government seized the surrounding farms, which reverted to the wild. Asian blight wiped out the Chestnut trees at the beginning of the century, killing one-fourth of all trees in the eastern USA. The ghost-town of Centralia, PA, was built upon anthracite coal deposits that have been burning underground for 50 years and will continue to burn for at least 250 more years making the surrounding land uninhabitable. ( I was astounded to learn that 50,000 U.S. miners were killed between the U.S. Civil War and World War I.)
It has long been a dream of mind to thru-hike the AT. Whenever it’s a damp, drizzly November in my soul, my heart takes to the wilderness, while my body remains imprisoned in comfort, convenience, circumstance, and inertia. Call me Ishmael.
[image error]"http://photo.goodreads.com/photos/133...

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