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A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail Mass Market Paperback – December 26, 2006
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The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way–and a couple of bears. Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).
- Print length397 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateDecember 26, 2006
- Dimensions4.15 x 1.11 x 6.86 inches
- ISBN-100307279464
- ISBN-13978-0307279460
- Lexile measure1210L
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Bryson is a very funny writer who could wring humor from a clammy sleeping bag.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Short of doing it yourself, the best way of escaping into nature is to read a book like A Walk in the Woods.”–The New York Times
“A terribly misguided, and terribly funny tale of adventure.... The yarn is choke-on-your-coffee funny.” –The Washington Post
“Bill Bryson could write an essay about dryer lint or fever reducers and still make us laugh out loud.” –Chicago Sun-Times
“Delightful.” –The Plain Dealer
“It’s great adventure, on a human scale, with survivable discomforts, and, happily, everybody goes home afterwards.” –Times Picayune
From the Back Cover
The 2,000-plus-mile trail winds through 14 states, stretching along the east coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine. It snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in North America, as well as through some of its most poverty-stricken and primitive backwoods areas.
With his offbeat sensibility, his eye for the absurd, and his laugh-out-loud sense of humour, Bryson recounts his confrontations with nature at its most uncompromising over his five-month journey.
An instant classic, riotously funny, "A Walk in the Woods will add a whole new audience to the legions of Bill Bryson fans.
About the Author
Bill Bryson's bestselling books include A Walk in the Woods, Neither Here Nor There, In a Sunburned Country, Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, and A Short History of Nearly Everything, the latter of which earned him the 2004 Aventis Prize. Bryson lives in England with his wife and children.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Bear!
I sat bolt upright. Instantly every neuron in my brain was awake and dashing around frantically, like ants when you disturb their nest. I reached instinctively for my knife, then realized I had left it in my pack, just outside the tent. Nocturnal defense had ceased to be a concern after many successive nights of tranquil woodland repose. There was another noise, quite near.
"Stephen, you awake?" I whispered.
"Yup," he replied in a weary but normal voice.
"What was that?"
"How the hell should I know."
"It sounded big."
"Everything sounds big in the woods."
This was true. Once a skunk had come plodding through our camp and it had sounded like a stegosaurus. There was another heavy rustle and then the sound of lapping at the spring. It was having a drink, whatever it was.
I shuffled on my knees to the foot of the tent, cautiously unzipped the mesh and peered out, but it was pitch black. As quietly as I could, I brought in my backpack and with the light of a small flashlight searched through it for my knife. When I found it and opened the blade I was appalled at how wimpy it looked. It was a perfectly respectable appliance for, say, buttering pancakes, but patently inadequate for defending oneself against 400 pounds of ravenous fur.
Carefully, very carefully, I climbed from the tent and put on the flashlight, which cast a distressingly feeble beam. Something about fifteen or twenty feet away looked up at me. I couldn't see anything at all of its shape or size--only two shining eyes. It went silent, whatever it was, and stared back at me.
"Stephen," I whispered at his tent, "did you pack a knife?"
"No."
"Have you get anything sharp at all?"
He thought for a moment. "Nail clippers."
I made a despairing face. "Anything a little more vicious than that? Because, you see, there is definitely something out here."
"It's probably just a skunk."
"Then it's one big skunk. Its eyes are three feet off the ground."
"A deer then."
I nervously threw a stick at the animal, and it didn't move, whatever it was. A deer would have bolted. This thing just blinked once and kept staring.
I reported this to Katz.
"Probably a buck. They're not so timid. Try shouting at it."
I cautiously shouted at it: "Hey! You there! Scat!" The creature blinked again, singularly unmoved. "You shout," I said.
"Oh, you brute, go away, do!" Katz shouted in merciless imitation. "Please withdraw at once, you horrid creature."
"Fuck you," I said and lugged my tent right over to his. I didn't know what this would achieve exactly, but it brought me a tiny measure of comfort to be nearer to him.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm moving my tent."
"Oh, good plan. That'll really confuse it."
I peered and peered, but I couldn't see anything but those two wide-set eyes staring from the near distance like eyes in a cartoon. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to be outside and dead or inside and waiting to be dead. I was barefoot and in my underwear and shivering. What I really wanted--really, really wanted--was for the animal to withdraw. I picked up a small stone and tossed it at it. I think it may have hit it because the animal made a sudden noisy start (which scared the bejesus out of me and brought a whimper to my lips) and then emitted a noise--not quite a growl, but near enough. It occurred to me that perhaps I oughtn't provoke it.
"What are you doing, Bryson? Just leave it alone and it will go away."
"How can you be so calm?"
"What do you want me to do? You're hysterical enough for both of us."
"I think I have a right to be a trifle alarmed, pardon me. I'm in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, staring at a bear, with a guy who has nothing to defend himself with but a pair of nail clippers. Let me ask you this. If it is a bear and it comes for you, what are you going to do--give it a pedicure?"
"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," Katz said implacably.
"What do you mean you'll cross that bridge? We're on the bridge, you moron. There's a bear out here, for Christ sake. He's looking at us. He smells noodles and Snickers and--oh, shit."
"What?"
"Oh. Shit."
"What?"
"There's two of them. I can see another pair of eyes." Just then, the flashlight battery started to go. The light flickered and then vanished. I scampered into my tent, stabbing myself lightly but hysterically in the thigh as I went, and began a quietly frantic search for spare batteries. If I were a bear, this would be the moment I would choose to lunge.
"Well, I'm going to sleep," Katz announced.
"What are you talking about? You can't go to sleep."
"Sure I can. I've done it lots of times." There was the sound of him rolling over and a series of snuffling noises, not unlike those of the creature outside.
"Stephen, you can't go to sleep," I ordered. But he could and he did, with amazing rapidity.
The creature--creatures, now--resumed drinking, with heavy lapping noises. I couldn't find any replacement batteries, so I flung the flashlight aside and put my miner's lamp on my head, made sure it worked, then switched it off to conserve the batteries. Then I sat for ages on my knees, facing the front of the tent, listening keenly, gripping my walking stick like a club, ready to beat back an attack, with my knife open and at hand as a last line of defense. The bears--animals, whatever they were--drank for perhaps twenty minutes more, then quietly departed the way they had come. It was a joyous moment, but I knew from my reading that they would be likely to return. I listened and listened, but the forest returned to silence and stayed there.
Eventually I loosened my grip on the walking stick and put on a sweater--pausing twice to examine the tiniest noises, dreading the sound of a revisit--and after a very long time got back into my sleeping bag for warmth. I lay there for a long time staring at total blackness and knew that never again would I sleep in the woods with a light heart.
And then, irresistibly and by degrees, I fell asleep.
Product details
- Publisher : Vintage; 2nd edition (December 26, 2006)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 397 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307279464
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307279460
- Lexile measure : 1210L
- Item Weight : 7.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.15 x 1.11 x 6.86 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #6,209 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #10 in Hiking & Camping Excursion Guides (Books)
- #10 in Travelogues & Travel Essays
- #10 in Travel Writing Reference
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. Settled in England for many years, he moved to America with his wife and four children for a few years ,but has since returned to live in the UK. His bestselling travel books include The Lost Continent, Notes From a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods and Down Under. His acclaimed work of popular science, A Short History of Nearly Everything, won the Aventis Prize and the Descartes Prize, and was the biggest selling non-fiction book of the decade in the UK.
Photography © Julian J
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Tiresome celebrity biographies, reminiscent of a painful 9th grade essay, sold merely because a famous name is on it . . . let's admit it-- what can they really "tell all" about, when their lives are already a literal (equally wearying) open book?
Romance novels, with a close up of a muscular hand clutching a lacy red bustier on the front, which after several dreary pages makes me feel like ripping it, literally, in half, and throwing the book away. Cookbooks-- there are a few decent ones in this "here read this!" genre, but many of them are thrown together to make a sale, and let's face it-- when is the last time you actually made a recipe from an actual cookbook? Exactly. You throw it in the bag for the beach, thumb through a few pages while smearing on sunscreen, and then toss it in the 'ole bookshelf when you get home, where it is destined to live for the rest of readless, purgatorial eternity.
A friend recommended "A Walk in the Woods." Sigh, I thought. Another recommendation. I admire the "woods" from a distance, but I fear insects, snakes, vermin, rodents, and even the casual snap of a twig within their clutches. I do not camp. I do not eat camp food. I prefer to have my meals without a side of food poisoning. So you'd be right in thinking that my reaction was something like, "Ugh another referral. I will have less in common with this book than a Protestant would have with the Pope." I started it grudgingly, expecting to do the obligatory dragging of my eyes across the page until it was finally, relievingly, replete.
Boy was I in for a surprise.
Within the first few pages I surprised myself by chuckling. Then laughing. Then outright, from the gut, throwing back my head and howling. I stayed up until almost 1 AM that first night, devouring chapter after chapter, even though I had to be up early for work the next day. I just couldn't put it down. The writing is refreshingly honest-- at once thoughtful, hilarious, sarcastic, and downright well done. This is not the scribbling of a celebrity trying to sell books. This is the tale of someone who has truly lived a once in a lifetime kind of all-American experience. His observations about the conditions of the trails, the miraculous preservation efforts made by volunteers on the trail for decades, and even his views on life, are inspirational. His descriptions of the kooky characters, the beautiful, sweeping vistas of untouched wilderness that he discovered as he rounded thousands of wearying bends in the never-ending trails . . . it's magic. Pure magic. I can almost close my eyes and see it, so vivid are his descriptions of the meadows, the wildflowers, the soft sighing of the trees in the quiet breeze.
I've always said that the best kind of writing contains three elements. First, it is relevant/relate-able to all. It takes an incredible author to take a subject about which I have little interest (camping), and make it relevant and interesting to me, yet he does. Second, it should have humor-- not the "polite chuckle" kind of humor, but a real, genuine, gut laughing kind of humor, hidden delightfully throughout the text, waiting to surprise you like golden treasure where you would least think to look. Third, it should have moments of piercing, beautiful clarity-- moments when you find yourself, for reasons you almost can't explain, blinking back the tears as some particularly poignant thought resonates through your very being.
Bill Bryson delivers richly on all three counts. This book ended with my feeling deliciously and completely satiated, in every way. I laughed until my sides were sore, I cried at the honest, beautiful tendrils of his story as it wrapped its beautifully written arms around my heart. I shook my head solemnly with a deep, "Mmmm, yes" at the inspirations recorded within the story as he discovered, not just the beauty of the Appalachian Trail, but the beauty of life, warmth, family, and companionship. Perhaps the beauty of America is that a little bit of the magic resides in the heart of all of us. That's the message here. And it's a darned inspirational one.
I haven't done this often, but a few times in my life a book is so wonderful-- so stupendous-- that I just can't bear to end it. So the moment I finish, I move my bookmark back to chapter 1. Not ending-- just starting again.
My bookmark is resting in chapter 1 of this one.
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2019
Tiresome celebrity biographies, reminiscent of a painful 9th grade essay, sold merely because a famous name is on it . . . let's admit it-- what can they really "tell all" about, when their lives are already a literal (equally wearying) open book?
Romance novels, with a close up of a muscular hand clutching a lacy red bustier on the front, which after several dreary pages makes me feel like ripping it, literally, in half, and throwing the book away. Cookbooks-- there are a few decent ones in this "here read this!" genre, but many of them are thrown together to make a sale, and let's face it-- when is the last time you actually made a recipe from an actual cookbook? Exactly. You throw it in the bag for the beach, thumb through a few pages while smearing on sunscreen, and then toss it in the 'ole bookshelf when you get home, where it is destined to live for the rest of readless, purgatorial eternity.
A friend recommended "A Walk in the Woods." Sigh, I thought. Another recommendation. I admire the "woods" from a distance, but I fear insects, snakes, vermin, rodents, and even the casual snap of a twig within their clutches. I do not camp. I do not eat camp food. I prefer to have my meals without a side of food poisoning. So you'd be right in thinking that my reaction was something like, "Ugh another referral. I will have less in common with this book than a Protestant would have with the Pope." I started it grudgingly, expecting to do the obligatory dragging of my eyes across the page until it was finally, relievingly, replete.
Boy was I in for a surprise.
Within the first few pages I surprised myself by chuckling. Then laughing. Then outright, from the gut, throwing back my head and howling. I stayed up until almost 1 AM that first night, devouring chapter after chapter, even though I had to be up early for work the next day. I just couldn't put it down. The writing is refreshingly honest-- at once thoughtful, hilarious, sarcastic, and downright well done. This is not the scribbling of a celebrity trying to sell books. This is the tale of someone who has truly lived a once in a lifetime kind of all-American experience. His observations about the conditions of the trails, the miraculous preservation efforts made by volunteers on the trail for decades, and even his views on life, are inspirational. His descriptions of the kooky characters, the beautiful, sweeping vistas of untouched wilderness that he discovered as he rounded thousands of wearying bends in the never-ending trails . . . it's magic. Pure magic. I can almost close my eyes and see it, so vivid are his descriptions of the meadows, the wildflowers, the soft sighing of the trees in the quiet breeze.
I've always said that the best kind of writing contains three elements. First, it is relevant/relate-able to all. It takes an incredible author to take a subject about which I have little interest (camping), and make it relevant and interesting to me, yet he does. Second, it should have humor-- not the "polite chuckle" kind of humor, but a real, genuine, gut laughing kind of humor, hidden delightfully throughout the text, waiting to surprise you like golden treasure where you would least think to look. Third, it should have moments of piercing, beautiful clarity-- moments when you find yourself, for reasons you almost can't explain, blinking back the tears as some particularly poignant thought resonates through your very being.
Bill Bryson delivers richly on all three counts. This book ended with my feeling deliciously and completely satiated, in every way. I laughed until my sides were sore, I cried at the honest, beautiful tendrils of his story as it wrapped its beautifully written arms around my heart. I shook my head solemnly with a deep, "Mmmm, yes" at the inspirations recorded within the story as he discovered, not just the beauty of the Appalachian Trail, but the beauty of life, warmth, family, and companionship. Perhaps the beauty of America is that a little bit of the magic resides in the heart of all of us. That's the message here. And it's a darned inspirational one.
I haven't done this often, but a few times in my life a book is so wonderful-- so stupendous-- that I just can't bear to end it. So the moment I finish, I move my bookmark back to chapter 1. Not ending-- just starting again.
My bookmark is resting in chapter 1 of this one.
Bill Bryson uses various elements to help try and bring his experience on the trail to life for the reader. He used styles such as similes and metaphors, and also he did a good amount of showing rather than telling. This is one description he uses to describe one part of the trail; “They [woods] make you feel small and confused and vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs,” (Bryson, 44). I found and lot of descriptions interesting and ones that pulled my attention. They were able to put pictures in my head of what the environment he was in was like. They might not be able to relate to younger audiences, but teens in high school and up would be able to enjoy and appreciate them. The author’s style of writing can also be tied into how he describes characters in the story.
I do not think that I can relate to Bill Bryson’s experiences, because I have never been put into the wilderness like he has. He has done something That I do not think I could tackle right now. As for the characters in his book I feel that I can relate meeting people who act like some of the people that he did. I believe that the characters were well rounded and each had their own kind of personality. Katz, the hiking partner of Bryson, is one such character who I believe has a dynamic personality. In his first conversation with Bryson after meeting face to face Bryson adds that “He saw my look of wonder. ‘Snickers,’ he explained. ‘Lots and lots of Snickers,’” (Bryson, 22). He helps give us an accurate painting of the person by not only how they look, but also the conversations that they have with others. I found myself either liking a character or feeling neutral toward them, except in the case of one or two people Bryson meets along the way.
The whole book is in chronological order; there is no trying to fill in what part of the story goes where to put it in order. Throwing the reader in the middle of the book may have not made much difference either way. The book was able to hold my attention for the most part, but some times I did find myself wishing I could skip over a section of the reading. These parts are placed at the beginning of the chapters. They do not pertain to the story so much. They are around for background information about the Appalachian Trail or something that is related to it. The information was helpful in some case, but they also seemed stretched out and long. However, the book was interesting and I was tuned into reading when the actual story was brought back. It became more interesting when he started talking about the views he experienced in the forest. In one part the author describes the trail by saying, “Best of all, there were views, luscious and golden, to left and right,” (Bryson, 124). It was at these parts that I was brought back into the story.
The book tells an interesting story of one person’s experience in the woods and is humorous in sections of the reading. However, I so not believe that everyone will get into this book. I did enjoy my mountaineering class in school, but I did find this book hard to stick with at some parts. This book may only be for those who find hiking enjoyable and want to learn about a trail of the U.S. that is not heard about that much.
Top reviews from other countries
Definitely recommend to every aspiring AT hiker.
His encounters with other hikers as well as his relationship with his companion are entertaining and clever analysis of others strengths and weaknesses, often raising a smile as one recalls similar characters in ones own life of adventures.
A good read about the famous Appalachian Trail, to non Americans it has the fame of a pilgrimage.