A Walk in the Woods : Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (Cassette) | 
 enlarge | Creator: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Rating:  960 reviews
Sales Rank: 491321
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Media: Audio Cassette
Number Of Items: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 4.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0553525069
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.40443
EAN: 9780553525069
ASIN: 0553525069
Publication Date: May 4, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Good shape - plays well!
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Product Description
"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."
So begins Bill Bryson's hilarious book A Walk in the Woods.Following his return to America after twenty years in Britain, Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine.The AT, as it's affectionately known to thousands of hikers, offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakes--and to a writer with the comic genius of Bill Bryson, it also provides endless opportunities to test his own powers of ineptitude, and to witness the majestic silliness of his fellow human beings.
For a start, there's the gloriously out-of-shape Stephen Katz, a buddy from Iowa who accompanies the similarly unfit Bryson on the trail.Once Bryson and Katz settle into their stride, it's not long before they come across the fabulously annoying Mary Ellen, whose disappearance ruins a perfectly good slice of pie, a gang of Ralph Lauren-attired yuppies from whom Katz appropriates a key piece of equipment, and a security guard in Pennsylvania who, for no ascertainable reason, impounds Bryson's car.Mile by arduous mile these latter-day pioneers walk America, along the way surviving the threat of bear attacks, the loss of key provisions, and everything else this awe-inspiring country can throw at them.
But A Walk in the Woods is more than just a laugh-out-loud hike.Bryson's acute eye is a wise witness to this fragile and beautiful trail, and as he tells its fascinating history, he makes a moving plea for the conservation of America's last great wilderness.An adventure, a comedy, a lament, and a celebration, A Walk in the Woods is destined to become a modern classic of travel literature.
Amazon.com
Your initial reaction to Bill Bryson's reading of A Walk in the Woods may well be "Egads! What a bore!" But by sentence three or four, his clearly articulated, slightly adenoidal, British/American-accented speech pattern begins to grow on you and becomes quite engaging. You immediately get a hint of the humor that lies ahead, such as one of the innumerable reasons he longed to walk as many of the 2,100 miles of the Appalachian Trail as he could. "It would get me fit after years of waddlesome sloth" is delivered with glorious deadpan flair. By the time our storyteller recounts his trip to the Dartmouth Co-op, suffering serious sticker shock over equipment prices, you'll be hooked. When Bryson speaks for the many Americans he encounters along the way--in various shops, restaurants, airports, and along the trail--he launches into his American accent, which is whiny and full of hard r's. And his southern intonations are a hoot. He's even got a special voice used exclusively when speaking for his somewhat surprising trail partner, Katz. In the 25 years since their school days together, Katz has put on quite a bit of weight. In fact, "he brought to mind Orson Welles after a very bad night. He was limping a little and breathing harder than one ought to after a walk of 20 yards." Katz often speaks in monosyllables, and Bryson brings his limited vocabulary humorously to life. One of Katz's more memorable utterings is "flung," as in flung most of his provisions over the cliff because they were too heavy to carry any farther. The author has thoroughly researched the history and the making of the Appalachian Trail. Bryson describes the destruction of many parts of the forest and warns of the continuing perils (both natural and man-made) the Trail faces. He speaks of the natural beauty and splendor as he and Katz pass through, and he recalls clearly the serious dangers the two face during their time together on the trail. So, A Walk in the Woods is not simply an out-of-shape, middle-aged man's desire to prove that he can still accomplish a major physical task; it's also a plea for the conservation of America's last wilderness. Bryson's telling is a knee-slapping, laugh-out-loud funny trek through the woods, with a touch of science and history thrown in for good measure. (Running time: 360 minutes, four cassettes) --Colleen Preston
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| Customer Reviews: Read 955 more reviews...
5 Stars for Part 1 & 3 1/2 Stars for Part 2 June 25, 2008
There are 2 parts to this book. Part 1 is awesome! It is a great story of 2 men hiking part of the Appalachian Trail and the ups and downs they had doing it. It's funny, witty and well written. Part 2 however lags a bit. The author drives part of the trail and walk parts of it in day trips, not nearly as exciting as part 1. The only thing in my opinion that save part 2 is the history and facts the author talks about. Especially about Pennsylvania and the Delaware Water Gap. Overall I gave it 4 stars. It could have been so much better if he hiked the whole thing, but overall was still a very good read.
 ridiculous, but it inspired me June 23, 2008
I had a long history as a streetwalker. Yes, a streetwalker. But, I never had even spent the night outdoors. However, when I read Bill Bryson's book I immediately decided I wanted to thru-hike the entire 2,175 mile trail.
There is a lot of criticism on the AT about Bryson's book, but one thing is undeniable. With his mass following and inimitable humor, he inspired legions of previous hiking virgins to attempt the AT. And that can only be good, as this mountainous wilderness trail holds wonders that your average American can only dream about. I definitely rate it as one of the top experiences in my life.
Better yet, it inspired me to write a book myself, called Skywalker. There is only one Bill Bryson when it comes to writing. However, it was easy to dissect his success. He wrote a book that appealed to the non-hiker, as much as the hiker. Further, he avoided the plague of so many trail narratives that get trapped in the day-to-day diary format, written by experts, for other experts, in a narrow "hikerese." Rather, he told a tale that is at once earthy, serious, lighthearted, but informative.
It may not be a classic, but it has increased the population of hikers on the AT, and in this day and age of anxiety and hyper-materialism that can only be to the good.
Skywalker '05 author Skywalker--Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail billwalker52@hotmail.com
Oh So Funny June 23, 2008
This book is hilarious!
Bryson's sense of humor and his sense of adventure is very funny. Even a couch potato would love this book.
My husband and I plan to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail in 2010, and I bought this book as research for our hike. I couldn't put the book down!
Compare this book with Scout's Honor April 21, 2008
This is actually a review of two books, one old and one new. Both are nonfiction, and both are intended for grown-ups. There's nothing in them that kids will find objectionable, but they may find them boring. I found them to be funny, poignant at times, and thought-provoking.
The first is called A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, published in 1997. The second is called Scout's Honor, by Peter Applebome, published in 2003. Bryson is a writer and journalist who decided to walk the Appalachian Trail at around age 50, and Walk is the story of his adventures on the AT. Applebome is a writer and a journalist who decided to become a Boy Scout dad at around age 50, and Honor is the story of his adventures with his son's Boy Scout troop and with Scouting in general.
I read Walk several years ago, and just discovered Honor last week. Reading Honor reminded me of Walk, so much so that I couldn't review the former without talking about the latter.
Bryson and a friend decided, almost on a lark, to hike the AT which they had heard so much about, but Bryson was so inexperienced a hiker that he couldn't tell a Nalgene from a North Face. In fact, his introduction to backpacking and hiking occurred in a sporting goods store. He and his friend started at the southern end of the AT, in Georgia, on a snowy autumn day, and ended, with a few breaks, at the northern end in Maine several years later.
Bryson's writing is self-deprecating and intentionally funny. He plays for laughs, and he gets them. By poking fun at himself, he gives himself license to give all the other characters on the trail the same treatment he gives himself in his writing. The book is funny throughout. But just as Mark Twain and Will Rogers gave us lots of food for thought in the middle of their humor, so Bryson writes a series of thoughtful essays between the lines of his funny stories: lessons about people's character and behavior, about greed and status, about environmental awareness and social responsibility, and about what Thoreau called "the need for wilderness" or something like that. (Yes, Thoreau talked about it before John Muir did.)
When you finish Bryson's book, you will be as satisfied with the conclusion as he was with the end of the hike. You may also come away with a renewed appreciation for wild places and with an awareness of the personality flaws that make you similar to the characters Bryson writes about. It's definitely a book I would read again.
Applebome, like Bryson, knew nothing about hiking, camping and backpacking, until he moved his family from Atlanta to Chappaqua, New York, and his son wanted to join the Boy Scouts. He was reluctant to get into the hiking and the canoeing, the knot-tying and the sleeping outside on the hard ground surrounded by rain, snow, wind and critters. He had hoped that his son would express an interest in Little League baseball instead, but, wishing to score some Good Dad points with his son, he went along with him to the Boy Scout meetings and outings.
Even before he started, Applebome had anti-Boy-Scout leanings -- but as he became more involved with his son's troop, that changed. Interweaved with the funny and poignant story of his own adventures with his son's troop, Applebome tells a balanced, thoughtful, well-researched and honest story about the history of Scouting and its founders, its awkward attempts to adapt to social change, and the recent controversies surrounding it. The book isn't all narrative -- it includes a lot of reporting, exposition and editorializing -- but it's definitely worth reading.
Applebome comes the end of his book grateful for having been able to share the experience with his son, the troop leaders, and the other Scouts and their dads. He himself grows considerably through his experiences, and he faces a huge crisis of conscience when the Boy Scouts win the Supreme Court judgement in their favor with respect to gays in Scouting. The crisis of conscience occurs because he feels that the corporate organization that is the Boy Scouts of America is dead wrong on at least one of the "three G" issues (gays, God, and girls) and not faithful to the wishes of Scouting's founders, and yet he sees that the local organizations of Scouting, the councils and troops, are a powerful force for good in their communities and are getting a raw deal by both BSA headquarters and the left-wing liberals who get all over Scouting's case because of the three Gs.
Being a reporter and a problem-solver at heart, he takes a long, hard look at what Scouting could be (and should be), compares it to what it is, and makes several really good recommendations for fixing Scouting. One of the most interesting things he says is that the Scout Oath and the Scout Law, the moral foundations for Scouting (in the U.S.A.), are rock-solid and it woud be a very good thing if all boys (and men!) lived by those tenets. He also says (either himself, or quoting someone) that the Boy Scout Handbook, any edition, is just the kind of "advice to boys" that people have been longing to give to boys today.
Unfortunately, Scouting is increasingly irrelevant in a society which competes so heavily (and so much more effectively) for boys' attention with sports, video games, and so on. Applebome laments this turn of events, and yet he asserts, with his primary evidence being the members of his own son, that Scouting appeals to a certain group of boys who really don't care if other people think it's uncool, and that Scouting (practiced the way it should be) really is a Good Thing in the boys' lives and is a major influence in turning them into the kind of men this world needs. (Those are my words, not his. He said it differently.)
Scout's Honor is written to and for three groups of people: former Boy Scouts who are now adults; current and former Boy Scouts; and current and former Boy Scout leaders. It's high-energy food for thought for all three groups.
A Walk in the Woods is written for everyone, and will be especially enjoyed by those who love or hate hiking, backpacking, camping, wilderness and the fools they find there. Although it contains more mental junk food than food for thought, it will open your mind and is definitely worth reading.
An entertaining read March 15, 2008
Bill Bryson is hillarious. The first few chapters contained bits and pieces that had me laughing out loud, which is not something I come across often in literature.
The book details a hike that Bryson and his friend (an out-of-shape character's character!) took on the Appalachian Trail. Both "older" gentleman aren't exactly in the best of shape... neither is a very experienced outdoorsman. Yet they both appreciate the signifigance of the trail, and are able to hike a good bit of it without mishap.
The way that Bryson writes is just invigorating. He's just so funny, and describes people in the most beautiful way. He's also managed to get quite a bit of back-story on the Appalachian Trail into this text, so the book is not only entertaining, but also somewhat educational. It made me want to jump on a plane and start hiking the trail!
After reading this book, I'm definitely going to search for more of Bryson's work. He's a good author, and this is a good story.
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