On June 1 I posted about Bill Bryson's book A Walk In The Woods, and this afternoon I finished it. Described as "travel lit", the work is primarily the result of the author's attempt to traverse the Appalachian Trail, a roughly 2200 mile (I say roughly because, as the book so marvelously points out, the Trail's length is debatable and changes from time to time) course from Georgia to Maine through thick woods and over daunting mountains. This is perhaps the starting point both for the author's intent for writing, and the reader's decision to pick up the book, but one thing I learned is that herein is much more than a journal of a man walking among the trees and critters. I found a boatload of paragraphs that stirred up a sense of environmental awareness, and not a few interesting historical accounts of the eastern United States. I also found quite a bit of philosophy, biology, and anthropology. To be brief in my review, this is one of those books I will feel very inclined to recommend to my friends for years to come, I think. Oh, and by the way, Bryson is one of the funniest men alive. I laughed out loud on more than one occasion, and for me that is quite unusual.
(Note: I have no idea what the picture is all about here, I just found it in a quick google search for a pic of Bryson, and thought it served my purpose.)
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