Ascension : BOOK REVIEW - A Walk in the Woods – Bill Bryson
Submitted by The Islander (Gavin Yon) 14.09.2006 (Article Archived on 28.09.2006)

If you like the ironical style of Bryson then this is a book for you. It was first published in 1997 following Bryson’s success with other best selling travel books including Notes from a Small Island.

If you like the ironical style of Bryson then this is a book for you.  It was first published in 1997 following Bryson’s success with other best selling travel books including Notes from a Small Island.  The book charts Bryson’s journey at the age of forty four in the company of his friend, and reformed alcoholic, Stephen Katz along one of the longest continuous trails in the world.  The Appalachian Trail stretches along the East Coast of the USA from Georgia to Maine passing through some of the most celebrated landscapes in America including the Smoky Mountains and the Shenandoah National Park. 

Bryson starts the tale with his sudden desire to walk the trail and his eventful selection of equipment.  As he researches the trail he leads the reader through the many dangers, which convince him he needs to seek comfort in companionship.  When he has all but given up trying to find a companion who is able to commit to a five month hike he is contacted by an old school friend, Stephen Katz.  They form an unlikely partnership; Bryson fit and committed to the trail, Katz an unfit reformed alcoholic who makes a fickle companion.  Katz never passes up an opportunity to spend the night in a motel, gorge on fast food and watch The X-Files.

Throughout the tale Bryson and Katz face savage weather, merciless insects, unreliable maps and unreliable companions.  Bryson narrates the tale in his own comic style and an eye for the unusual.  The tale is not just an end to end narrative but is interspersed with pieces of history, detailed and comical descriptions of fellow hikers and musings on life as Bryson sees it.

Although Bryson achieves his ambition not to die outdoors, I was disappointed to reach the middle of the book only to find that he and Katz had abandoned the complete hike in favour of walking sections.   Nonetheless, the book made good, light hearted reading and I often found myself laughing out loud.

A Walk in the Woods and Notes from a Small Island are both available to borrow from the Two Boats Library and Resource Centre.

 (Submitted by Mike kempster)