Best Price A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (Official Guides to the Appalachian Trail) Review

Are you looking to buy A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (Official Guides to the Appalachian Trail)? here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (Official Guides to the Appalachian Trail). check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Great Deals

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (Official Guides to the Appalachian Trail) Review

This is much more than a travelogue of two neophyte hikers on the Appalachian Trail, and readers looking for a blow by blow account of the travails of Bill Bryson and his companion, Stephen Katz, will be disappointed. Hiking provides only a backdrop to a heartfelt discourse on the social condition of America, local history, the environment, and the complexities of friendship. The pretext for the book was Bryson's return to the United States after twenty years in Britain, and his interest in "rediscovering America" after such a lengthy absence.
The vast majority of the reviews of the book cite its hilarity (one reviewer called it "choke-on-your-coffee funny"), and indeed there are very many funny parts. However, the deeper I got into the book, I detected a strong shift in the author's sentiment from satire to deep introspection. His observations became more acute, more angry, and more individualized as his long hike constantly brings to his mind the fragile environment of the Trail, the insanity of bureacrats entrusted with the AT, and his own personal limitations.
This was my first encounter with Bill Bryson, and while I found him entertaining, a beautiful writer, and an astute observer, some readers will be put off my his sharp satiric wit. It is certain that he will offend somebody. A friend of mine, who also read the book, was very much upset by the fact that Bryson and Katz didn't hike all 2,200 miles of the Trail, and that somehow their "failure" should prevent the telling of the story. This is utter nonsense and just throws more manure onto the present dung heap that has accumulated from the participants involved in peak bagging, wilderness races, and experiential therapy groups.
Bryson and Katz at least tried to hike the entire AT, and they returned from their hike as changed men who learned many lessons about the wilderness and friendship. Towards the end of the book, the two men are talking about the hike. When Katz remarks that "we did it," Bryson reminds him that they didn't even see Mount Katahdin, much less climb it. Katz says, "Another mountain. How many do you need to see, Bryson?" I agree with Katz (and ultimately Bryson). They hiked the Appalachian Trail.

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (Official Guides to the Appalachian Trail) Overview

Want to learn more information about A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (Official Guides to the Appalachian Trail)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

32% Off Discounts: Lowest Price Desert Solitaire Review

Are you looking to buy Desert Solitaire? here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Desert Solitaire. check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Great Deals

Desert Solitaire Review

Edward Abbey's DESERT SOLITAIRE belongs on the shortest of several short lists of 20th century classics, whether we are talking of classic literature of the American West, nature writing, or environmentalism.
Why is this such a brilliant book? It isn't the originality of ideas. Other writers-Aldo Leopold, Wallace Stegner, Bernard DeVoto, Mary Austin-had already articulated many of Abbey's central ideas either about nature or about Western policy. Bernard DeVoto was an innovator; Abbey is not. Nor is Abbey's anger and fury at exploiters and defilers unique: DeVoto was just as irate and just as incapable of pulling his punches. Nor is it Abbey's overall vision that makes his book so compelling. Again, both DeVoto and Stegner-and especially DeVoto-evidenced a broader and more systematic understanding of the broader issues confronting the West. None of this is accidental. DeVoto exerted a major influence on Stegner, and Stegner taught Abbey in the Stanford University Creative Writing Program.
What makes DESERT SOLITAIRE so marvelous is the almost tactile love and passion Abbey displays for the Desert Southwest. Over and over Abbey summons up specific places, particular mountains, individual landscapes. Although he can write about the desert in general, he more frequently writes about particular spots in Arches National Park and the surrounding environs that help explain his attachment to the West. He is the literary equivalent, in his more somber, reflective moments, of Eliot Porter and Ansel Adams. As a result, what one recalls upon remembering DESERT SOLITAIRE is not words so much as a collection of images.
Structurally, the book only resembles a memoir of his time working as a park ranger in the Arches National Park. The book makes it seems as if he worked there only one year, when in fact he worked there two. Furthermore, even what appears as a single year fails to account for all the content of the book. He uses, rather, the fiction of a single season as a framework upon which to hang tales, reflections, and rants. This intermixing of narrative with asides gives the book a richness of texture it might not otherwise possess. The narrative of his time as a ranger gives the book much of it structure, but the rants and sidetracking provides it with much of its content.
I hate to write something as trite as this being an absolutely essential book for anyone remotely interested in the subjects it touches upon, but such is the case. Abbey wrote many other nonfiction works and novels. All are interesting, several of them quite good, but DESERT SOLITAIRE is easily his greatest. It truly is a classic.

Desert Solitaire Overview

Want to learn more information about Desert Solitaire?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...