52 Books: Book 10

My ninth book to read this year was A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. I confess that this is the second time I have read this book {the first being several years ago when my husband and I read it aloud on a road trip}. I loved the book then and I still love it now.

I guess it is my personal desire to walk the Appalachian Trail that makes this book so endearing to me, but it is also Bryson's witty writing that I enjoy so much.

The book follows Bryson and his long-time friend, Katz, as they attempt to hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail. The book is quite comical and gives a great overview of what it is like to hike for days on end in the woods. Whether or not you love to hike, this is a book worth reading.

Excerpts from the book:

All 2,100 miles of the trail... are maintained by volunteers – indeed, the AT is said to be the largest volunteer-run undertaking on the planet. It remains gloriously free of commercialism.

Woods are not like other spaces... their trees surround you, loom over you, press in from all sides. Woods choke off views and leave you muddled and without bearings. They make you feel small and confused and vulnerable, like a small child, lost in a crowd of strange legs. Stand in a desert or prairie and you know are in a big space. Stand in a woods and you only sense it. They are a vast, featureless nowhere. And they are alive.

I was beginning to appreciate that the central feature of life on the Appalachian Trail is deprivation, that the whole point of the experience is to remove yourself so thoroughly from the conveniences of everyday life that the most ordinary things... fill you with wonder and gratitude.

I had come to realize that I didn't have any feelings towards the AT that weren't confused an contradictory. I was weary of the trails, but still strangely in its thrall; found the endless slog tedious but irresistible; grew tired of the boundless woods, but admired their boundlessness; enjoyed the escape from civilization and ached for its comforts. I wanted to quit and do this forever, sleep in a bed and in a tent, see what was over the next hill and never see a hill again...

I got a great deal... from the experience. I learned to pitch a tent and sleep beneath the stars. For a brief, proud period I was slender and fit. I gained a profound respect for wilderness and nature and the benign dark power of the woods. I understand now, in a way I never did before, the colossal scale of the woods. I found patience and fortitude that I didn't know I had. I discovered an America that millions of people scarcely know exists... 

We didn't walk 2,100 miles, it's true, but here's the thing: we tried. So Katz was right after all, and I don't care what anybody says. We hiked the Appalachian Trail. {The author and his hiking partner completer 870 of the 2,100 miles}

52 Books in 52 Weeks: Book 24

There's No Toilet Paper... on the Road Less Taken is a compilation of short stories edited by Doug Lansky. Among the contributors is Bill Bryson, author of A Walk in the Woods. These short stories are full of humor and misadventure that come when you leave home. It was a decent read. Some of the stories were so so, while some had me cracking up. It was the perfect book to read in the car on our recent road trip to Canada.

Some excerpts from the book:

The fact that I brought luggage to a nudist resort is, in itself, worthy of some discussion. But how I felt carrying three suitcases and a hanging garment bag through a maze of lounging naked people... is a topic Talmudic rabbis could debate for centuries.

Proper German has that "chainsaw cutting through a backed-up septic tank" sound to it, much like Nirvana without the long hair.

There's no such thing as cholesterol on the road. In a week in West Texas, I ate three chicken-fried steaks, one fillet mignon, a couple of burgers, a lamb chop dinner, and, of course, beef jerky. Not counting the bacon. And I'm not even counting my daily bacon-and-eggs breakfast. By the end of the trip, my body was so deprived of greenery, I was grazing on garnishes.

Disney World is the world's first working socialist state. Everything is timed, planned and orchestrated. The trains do run on time...

France has found a unique way of controlling its unwanted critter population. They have done this by giving animals like snails, pigeons and frogs fancy names, thus transforming back yard pets into expensive delicacies. These are then served to gullible tourists who will eat anything they can't pronounce.

{In third world countries} there is a precise and complicated etiquette of horn use. Honk your horn only under the following circumstances:

1. When anything blocks the road.
2. When anything doesn't.
3. When anything might.
4. At red lights.
5. At green lights. 
6. At all other times.