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Book Cover for: A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

Bill Bryson

Reader Score

84%

84% of readers

recommend this book

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The classic chronicle of a "terribly misguided and terribly funny" (The Washington Post) hike of the Appalachian Trail, from the author of A Short History of Nearly Everything and The Body

"The best way of escaping into nature."--The New York Times

Back in America after twenty years in Britain, Bill Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. The AT offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakes--and to a writer with the comic genius of Bill Bryson, it also provides endless opportunities to witness the majestic silliness of his fellow human beings.

For a start there's the gloriously out-of-shape Stephen Katz, a buddy from Iowa along for the walk. But A Walk in the Woods is more than just a laugh-out-loud hike. Bryson's acute eye is a wise witness to this beautiful but fragile trail, and as he tells its fascinating history, he makes a moving plea for the conservation of America's last great wilderness. An adventure, a comedy, and a celebration, A Walk in the Woods is a modern classic of travel literature.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

Book Details

  • Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
  • Publish Date: May 4th, 1999
  • Pages: 304
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.00in - 5.30in - 0.80in - 0.55lb
  • EAN: 9780767902526
  • Categories: Essays & TraveloguesUnited States - Northeast - GeneralUnited States - South - East South Central (AL, KY, MS, TN)

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About the Author

Bill Bryson's bestselling books include A Walk in the Woods, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, and A Short History of Nearly Everything (which won the Aventis Prize in Britain and the Descartes Prize, the European Union's highest literary award). He was chancellor of Durham University, England's third oldest university, from 2005 to 2011, and is an honorary fellow of Britain's Royal Society.

More books by Bill Bryson

Book Cover for: The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: One Summer: America, 1927, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: At Home: A Short History of Private Life, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: Shakespeare, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: A Really Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: Shakespeare: The World as Stage, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: A Short History of Nearly Everything: Special Illustrated Edition, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: Neither Here Nor There:: Travels in Europe, Bill Bryson
Book Cover for: I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away, Bill Bryson

Praise for this book

"Bryson is . . . great company right from the start--a lumbering, droll, neatnik intellectual who comes off as equal parts Garrison Keillor, Michael Kinsley, and . . . Dave Barry...[Readers] may find themselves turning the pages with increasing amusement and anticipation as they discover that they're in the hands of a satirist of the first rank who writes (and walks) with Chaucerian brio."
--The New York Times Book Review

"A terribly misguided and terribly funny tale of adventure...choke-on-your-coffee funny."
--The Washington Post Book World

"A Walk in the Woods is an almost perfect travel book."
--The Boston Globe

"The Appalachian Trail...consists of some five million steps, and Bryson manages to coax a laugh, and often an unexpectedly startling insight, out of every one he traverses...It is hard not to grin idiotically through all 304 pages...sheer comic entertainment."
--Kirkus Reviews