A Walk in the Woods

I read this book back in the 1990s when I went to college near a segment of the Appalachian Trail. The idea of thru-hiking the 2200 miles of it seemed incredible to me. Someone recently brought the book up. As we chatted I realized I remember almost none of it, including some big parts of it. So I'm reading it again. This is not a how-to. This is almost a how-to not because this is a city slicking middle aged writer doing this attempt. That's probably what makes it so relatable. It's even been turned into a movie. Parts of it will tempt you to try it. Parts of it will dissuade you from ever hiking again. It was overall an easy entertaining read.

Would have been 5 stars from me, but some of the stereotyping was a little ridiculous at points. I get that it was part of the humor, but I still didn't care for it.

If you are looking for an in-depth account of the happenings on the AT, this is not the book for that. Bryson does discuss frequently what happened when they were hiking and some of the in-between, but he also goes into a lot of history of the trail itself and some of the parks that they went through.