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Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0767902513
ISBN-13: 9780767902519
Jun 1998
Publisher: Bantam Dell Pub Group
274 pages
Language: English |
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* ML=ships from multiple locations, AE/AP/AA=ships from U.S. Military location.
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* ML=ships from multiple locations, AE/AP/AA=ships from U.S. Military location.
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Synopsis
Bill Bryson, known in England as "the funniest travel writer alive," returns to the States and walks the Appalachian Trail, starting in Hanover, New Hampshire.
| Size | | Length: | 274 pages | | Height: | 10.0 in | | Width: | 6.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 17.6 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "Not long after I moved with my family to a small town in New Hampshire I happened upon a path that vanished into a wood on the edge of town."
Industry Reviews
"It's not all yuks--though it is hard not to grin idiotically through all 288 pages--for Bryson is a talented portraitist of place."
Kirkus Reviews (03/01/1998)
Everywhere Bryson goes, women seem to be ugly. . . . These sexist caricatures may be metonymies for the ugliness of American culture, which is Bryson's perennial subject, but his vigilant insistence on other people's inferiority can be cloying. . . . Even his buddy Katz ('ideas are not Katz's strongest suit') makes a useful comic butt. . . . Bryson's disaffection with America is the flip side of his love affair with Europe. . . . Cultural warfare aside, Bryson writes well about the reality of the forest: an environment which is pleasant to imagine but uncongenial in practice. . . . Grisly takes of true crime and bear attacks combine with details of ecological disaster to give the book a sober side but Bryson is, of course, never less than readable. Though [this] is not as funny as his books are often alleged to be, it still has plenty of Bryson's distinctive verbal charisma.
Annotation copyright H.W. Wilson Company.
DeCandido
Returning to the U.S. after 20 years in England, Iowa native Bryson decided to reconnect with his mother country by hiking the length of the 2100-mile Appalachian Trail. Awed by merely the camping section of his local sporting goods store, he nevertheless plunges into the wilderness and emerges with a consistently comical account of a neophyte woodsman learning hard lessons about self-reliance. Bryson (The Lost Continent) carries himself in an irresistibly bewildered manner, accepting each new calamity with wonder and hilarity. He reviews the characters of the AT (as the trail is called), from a pack of incompetent Boy Scouts to a perpetually lost geezer named Chicken John. Most amusing is his cranky, crude and inestimable companion, Katz, a reformed substance abuser who once had single-handedly "become, in effect, Iowa's drug culture." The uneasy but always entertaining relationship between Bryson and Katz keeps their walk interesting, even during the flat stretches. Bryson completes the trail as planned, and he records the misadventure with insight and elegance. He is a popular author in Britain and his impeccably graceful and witty style deserves a large American audience as well. (May)
Lopate
YA-Leisurely walks in the Cotswolds during a 20-year sojourn in England hardly prepared Bryson for the rigors of the Appalachian Trail. Nevertheless, he and his friend Katz, both 40-something couch potatoes, set out on a cold March morning to walk the 2000-mile trail from Georgia to Maine. Overweight and out of shape, Katz jettisoned many of his provisions on the first day out. The men were adopted by Mary Ellen, a know-it-all hiker eager to share her opinions about everything. They finally eluded her, encountered some congenial hikers, and after eight days of stumbling up and down mountains in the rain and mud, came to Gatlinburg, TN. Acknowledging they would never make it the whole way, they decided to skip the rest of the Smokies and head for the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia-by car. Late that summer, for their last hike, the pair attempted to hike the Hundred Mile Wilderness in Maine, near the trail's end. They got separated and Bryson spent a day and night searching for his friend. When they finally were reunited, "...we decided to leave the endless trail and stop pretending we were mountain men because we weren't." This often hilarious account of the foibles of two inept adventurers is sprinkled with fascinating details of the history of the AT, its wildlife, and tales of famous and not-so-famous hikers. In his more serious moments, Bryson argues for the protection of this fragile strip of wilderness. YAs who enjoy the outdoors, and especially those familiar with the AT, will find this travelogue both entertaining and insightful.-Molly Connally, Kings Park Library, Fairfax County, VA
Christiansen
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