A Walk in the Woods | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Rosetta
Category: EBooks
List Price: $8.99
Buy New: $7.19
You Save: $1.80 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  71 reviews
Sales Rank: 493
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.40443
ASIN: B000FBFLX0
Publication Date: September 20, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
A Walk in the Woods is a laugh-out-loud account of an outrageously rugged hike by a beloved comic author. Bill Bryson decided in 1996 to walk the 2,100-mile Appalachian trail. Winding from Georgia to Maine, this uninterrupted 'hiker's highway' sweeps through the heart of some of America's most beautiful and treacherous terrain. Bryson risked snake bite and hantavirus to trudge up unforgiving mountains, plod through swollen rivers, and yearn for cream sodas and hot showers. This amusingly ill-conceived adventure brings Bryson to the height of his comic powers, but his acute eye also observes an astonishing landscape of silent forests, sparkling lakes, and other national treasures that are often ignored or endangered. The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson's hilarious first travel book, chronicled a trip in his mother's Chevy around small town America. Since then, he has written several more about the UK and the US, including notable bestsellers, A Walk in the Woods, I'm A Stranger Here Myself, In a Sunburned Country and, most recently, A Short History of Nearly Everything.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 66 more reviews...
 A pleasant read if you can wade through the smug November 17, 2008
I enjoy Mr. Bryson's craft of writing. His description of the trail, and his attempt at walking it capture the imagination. Never mind that he doesn't finish the trail; it's his story of his attempt. The descriptions are vivid. It's an inspirational read, and reignites my love of hiking and makes me want to attempt a long, put-off goal of x-country skiing a hut trip! My complaint is his constant snide remarks about his walking partner, others on the trail, the towns he visits, the simpletons who inhabit the towns,and government agencies who oversee the trails and make decisions for towns. It gets old and sounds a bit whiney and snide after awhile.
 Entertaining all the way thru... October 31, 2008
This is the first book by Bryson I picked up and I could hardly put it down before finishing it. It flows very well, is full of historical facts and great imagery of Bryson's journey along the AT.
Grammer mistakes galore! October 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved this book but I'll be darned if there wasn't at least one mistake in the translation to the kindle version every few pages. One or two misplaced commas I can deal with but not the thirty+ mistakes that I alone found. It became distracting after awhile and it is obvious no one proofreads these Kindle versions before they are uploaded for folks to buy.
C'mon Amazon, if you want this Kindle thing to succeed, you're going to have to at least give these things a once-over.
Otherwise, loved the book. Great story and appreciated the author's humour.
 Waste of time, Misleading, Huge disappointment............. October 12, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
This guy is a looser! I applaud him for "attempting" the AT trail, but come on! He did not do even half of it. This book is for people who will never venture down a trail of any kind! I have done my fair share of mountaineering and hiking; I would never fathom writing about my failed attempt to "walk" a trail. If I was getting paid to "hike" something like the AT trail, I sure in the hell would finish it.
The only funny part for me was Mary Ellen! The more I read the more I agree with her opinion. She met the guy? As far as Kat, I like this guy. He seems to be a good guy that went out of his element to try something new!
Conclusion: Publisher should get their money back, Bill should have to go walk the whole trail over start to finish and he should have to do it with Mary Ellen!
Save your money & time.
Other recommendation: "No short cut's to the top" by Ed Viestures Great read, just makes you feel great about life!
No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
A Long, Slow Walk To Nowhere ... October 8, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Some things we never seem to learn, like judging a book by its cover. In this instance, the cover of "A Walk In The Woods" looks inviting enough, even exciting, with the picture of a bear staring you down.
False advertising.
If "A Walk In The Woods" had been a TV show, it would have been named Seinfeld, but without the humor, because it is truly a book about nothing. Two guys decide to walk the Appalachian Train for different reasons. However, they don't actually hike together, they don't meet a lot of compelling other people and they never see a bear, or a bobcat either. Huh?
Instead, the reader is subjected to lengthy prose about the stark glories and occasional majesty of the AT, the shelter accommodations for hikers, or lack thereof, and a pile of pages filled with administrivia about the history of the trail.
Yikes! Our reluctant heroes did not even reach their destination, or come close ("a detail").
So, what did we learn from this reading experience? Not much, although it did addle my brain in regard to my neighbor who has contracted every conceivable disease, some very serious, in his pursuit of walking sections of the AT. But, he has probably already read this book and given it a 5 star rating.
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