A Walk in the Woods.
Bill Bryson was better known as the witty and urbane author of popular science books like The Body and A Short History of Nearly Everything before he reached a mid-life professional crisis and dropped it all for a spell to hike the Appalachian Trail. One last adventure before it was too late.
Accompanying him is his last choice for the trip. An old associate by the name of ‘Katz’ who nurses several potentially trip-killing physical and mental disabilities, but seems just able to recover his health for the daily grind on the trail and occasional romantic prospecting in trail towns.
Bryson and Katz don’t come particularly close to finishing the AT, which has been a point of contention for trail geeks. They skip sections of the trail starting in the Smokies and Virginia, then all of New England until Maine.
But Bryson nevertheless goes on to produce one of the archetypical trail memoirs, likely the second best seller of all time next to Wild. And the impact on the Appalachian Trail was comparable: The Appalachian Trail Conference estimates that in the hiking season after the book’s release, starting thru-hikers grew by 45 percent.
For the general public and non-purists, Bryson’s book is hard not to love. It has some hiking, some adventure, some travelogue, plenty of scenery, a good dose of science, and a cast of quirky characters ripe for Bryson’s trademark humor.
Who cares if Bryson and Katz actually finished the trail? In their minds they did enough, and it was certainly plenty to produce one of the most popular books of the genre.
Trail Memoir 