Bill Bryson decides to walk the Appalachian Trail which is some 2100 miles long and takes months to hike. He starts the story with some ways to die on the trail - bear attacks, falls, frozen deaths, murders - and then heads off with his friend Stephen Katz who is the highlight of the book. The parts with these two are delightful. The research was bring and I found myself skipping most of that because I am not likely to walk the AT.
The two get going and Katz, completely out of shape, a reformed drinker, hangs on every inch of the way, and comes up with some fantastic moments. Like the time he wants to have an affair with Beulah whom he meets at a laundrette and ends up running away from her husband. Then there's Mary Ellen who adopts them because she feels they cannot take care of themselves. They break their journey and then pick it up later and almost complete it. Katz gets lost towards the end and somehow gets back which is a huge relief. We need men like Katz around.
All in all as entertaining as Bryson's work is always and there were times when I burst out laughing. Of course the descriptions of the ways people could die could make people think twice but some of them are quite crazy. Like a woman who puts honey on her young kid's hand so a bear can lick it off - and the bear bites off the arm.
That's how the book is. They made it into a movie and I remember watching Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. It was fun.
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