By Bill Bryson
From Publishers Weekly
Returning to the U.S. after 20 years in
England, Iowa native Bryson decided to reconnect with his mother country
by hiking the length of the 2100-mile Appalachian Trail. Awed by merely
the camping section of his local sporting goods store, he nevertheless
plunges into the wilderness and emerges with a consistently comical
account of a neophyte woodsman learning hard lessons about self-reliance.
Bryson (The Lost Continent) carries himself in an irresistibly bewildered
manner, accepting each new calamity with wonder and hilarity. He reviews
the characters of the AT (as the trail is called), from a pack of
incompetent Boy Scouts to a perpetually lost geezer named Chicken John.
Most amusing is his cranky, crude and inestimable companion, Katz, a
reformed substance abuser who once had single-handedly "become, in
effect, Iowa's drug culture." The uneasy but always entertaining
relationship between Bryson and Katz keeps their walk interesting, even
during the flat stretches. Bryson completes the trail as planned, and
he records the misadventure with insight and elegance. He is a popular
author
in Britain and his impeccably graceful and witty style deserves a large
American audience as well.