A spare review: "A Walk in the Woods"

Over on my work blog, we've been reviewing books every week as part of a 52 Book Reading Challenge.

I've been thinking about writing "bonus" reviews on this page, where I mention a few things I prudently snipped out of a review that's promoting works in my library's collections, but I haven't gotten around to such things.

Recently, though, I stuffed up.

For a number of the reviews, I've chosen books that I had lying around my house that also happen to be books in the collection, and I did that for my most recent review as well....

Only, it turns out that it wasn't a book we have in the collection - it was a book we had in the collection. I couldn't very well review a book we weeded, now, could I? So I've got a left-over book review floating around. Just for the heck of it, I'm putting it here:

*****

Sharon B read A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson.

Have you ever had one of those conversations that go along the lines of: “If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?”

Whenever something like that comes up, my answer is almost always “I’d like to have Bill Bryson’s job.” And this is completely true. I’d love to write Creative Nonfiction for a living. I’m sure there are parts of Bryson’s job that are hard going, but the man takes trips he’s been on, or places he’s visited, or topics that fascinate him, and he manages to spin best-selling books out of them. Who wouldn’t want to do that?

A Walk in the Woods is one of Bryson’s most famous books. It’s a slightly fictionalised account of a hiking trip Bryson undertook in the late 90s, when he decided to walk the Appalachian Trail (“slightly fictionalised” because he changed people’s names and was a bit flexible with his descriptions of his interactions with them).

Chapters that chronicle his time on the trail (with his travel buddy, “Katz”) are interspersed with sections talking about the trail, the history of national parks in America, the fate of certain species of trees or mollusks, and some insights into American culture and the relationship between Americans and their natural heritage.

It’s an interesting mix. The book is basically two books in one. On the one hand we have the story of a hiking trip (the walk in the woods), and on the other hand, we have a collection of essays inspired by the woods in which our heroes walked.

It may be a bit of an acquired taste – and I’ll admit this is my second attempt to read this book. The first time I picked it up I didn’t get past the first couple of chapters. But, I’m glad I took the opportunity to revisit this book and take a walk with Bill – it has been an interesting trip.

*****

Oh, and just between you and me, I didn't actually read this book at all - I've been listening to the audio book in my car. The library I work for has never had the audio version of this book, so I was cheating big time.