A walk in the woods portrays Bill Bryson's report on his walk along the Appalachian Trail. The Trail is the longest continuous footpath in the world, and it snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in America.
Bill Bryson decides he’s going to walk the Appalachian Trail in America, which is a mostly wooded and rocky trail, covering several states. He takes a long a friend who is ill prepared and overweight and not your likely hiker for such and intense trail. The first half of the book is true to Bryson’s style; it’s witty, clever and well written. He tells some great stories of what he’s doing and some of the interesting tales from previous hikers. However he gives up the trail quite quickly and this is where the book loses itself. He does pick up the trail a bit later on (after he’s gone home for some rest and promote his latest book), and does sections of the trail. But he doesn’t take the same friend (which is where some of the delightful stories come from) and he goes off on history rants about the areas he’s travelling, which feel like he is just trying to beef up the pages a bit. After he first looses the trail he looses the momentum of the book and he can’t seem to make up for it in the rest of the story.
Love Bill Bryson's writing. I think that this one and Notes from a small island are the funniest ones but I know what you mean about the second half of the book. It is more interesting when they are actually hiking together.
ReplyDeleteIf you're into more travel reads I recommend Peter Moore. Swahili for the broken hearted was the funniest (in my opinion) but he's travelled all over.