i hated this book and i was actually quite surprised and pleasantly so that not many people thus far have included it on their list of favorites.
it was nothing that i expected.
it's on everybody's "omg you must read this AT book" book list, and it was so hyped up. i went into the book thinking "hey that's awesome... this guy thru-hiked the AT and wrote a book about it and it's going to be all about his experience on the trail."
not so much. actually, it's more about his experiences off the trail and history of the trail than his hiking at all. he didn't even finish 1/4 of the trail.
and his attitude towards the south sucks. he pokes typical elitist yankee fun at southerners his entire way through georgia and tennessee and then he takes a cab from knoxville to roanoke and completely skips that entire portion of the trail. what the heck? you just give up and skip on to roanoke?
i think i would have had a better impression of bryson's book if i had known going into it that he less than half-assed his way up the trail. he does include a few interesting points in his book about histories of certain trail towns and points along the way, but there have been so many other history books written on the trail that i felt he used them as filler for the book he was writing about something he never experienced.
"i ain't got a dime
but what i got is mine
i ain't rich,
but Lord, i'm free."
Fiction:
Raymond Carver -- Would You Please be Quiet Please?
Alice Munro -- Lives of Girls and Women
Isaac Babel -- Red Cavalry
William Trevor -- The Collected Stories
Guilty pleasures (genre fiction):
John Le Carre -- Smiley's People
J.R.R. Tolkien -- The Lord of the Rings
Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell): The Blood Doctor
Non-fiction (limited to the adventure genre most likely to be of interest here):
Norman MacLean -- Young Men and Fire
Ed Viesturs -- No Shortcuts to the Top
Last edited by map man; 02-11-2011 at 22:56.
Actually it kinda isn't. The guides are there to help you acclimate, coordinate with the other teams, make sure things run smoothly during the month of marching up and down btwn base camp and camp 1, 2 and 3. Once you are above 8000M @ camp four the responsibility falls on yourself to get back down. Most deaths on Everest occur on the descent because people push past their turn around times.
There is very little actual climbing @ Everest. It is mostly a very long trek uphill.
"some editing should be done in parentheses for clarity where spelling prevents reading."---matthewski
^
Thank-you stoned flea for the clarification. I'm not going to buy it now, especially if he has an elitist attitude with some snarky ass comments about the south. I am going to pick up “Into the Wild” though, and I know I’m really late on that one but whatever.
...God's Country, and Scotch.
Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.
-Edward Abbey
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
Horn of Africa by Phillip Caputo
Books i have read on the trail:
-The Road Cormac McCarthy-friggin classic
-AWol on The AT- Dave Miller -nice trail book
-Peoples History of the United States- Howard Zinn classic picked it up at Hemlock Hollows and couldnt put it down
-Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
YOUTUBE: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCMDkRcGP1yP20SOD-oiSGcQ
Instagram: DIGGER_PCT_2016
twitter: @takethisbread
AT 2x, LT, JMT, CT, Camino, Ireland Coast to Coast, HWT, WT, NET, NST, PCT
this x1000, incredible book.Originally Posted by takethisbread
Favorite novel ever is East of Eden, but far too thick for the trail. Agatha Christie paperbacks are great and lightweight.
As for A Walk in the Woods, I liked it quite a bit but I'm also not from the South. It's not an argument worth getting into on Whiteblaze but you should at least read it and decide for yourself. Shouldn't be too hard to find a discarded copy somewhere along the trail.
This one is under the heading, " I thought my hike was hard..."
How I Found Livingstone - Henry Stanley
This one I couldn't put down...A must read for anyone who sails.
Longitude - Dava Sobel
" There is no hope for a civilization which starts each day to the sound of an alarm clock ."
Forgot to add that you can download 'How I found Livingstone' for free from Amazon Classics or Gutenberg and I borrowed ' Longitude' on ebooks from my library.
(OverdriveMedia)
" There is no hope for a civilization which starts each day to the sound of an alarm clock ."
Some excellent suggestions.
For some light fare, I enjoy Carl Hiassen's books
If you haven't tried/considered them, you may wish to consider audio books. I have about 450 on my iPod which weighs less than a paperback. I know it is a somewhat different experience than actually holding a book in your hand, but one real positive is you can listen while actually hiking.
Paul "Mags" Magnanti
http://pmags.com
Twitter: @pmagsco
Facebook: pmagsblog
The true harvest of my life is intangible...a little stardust caught,a portion of the rainbow I have clutched -Thoreau
A hiker with a cultivated literary taste? Love it! Try Miracles, Inc. if you get the chance. You might even see it on the trail this year. I know a copy is headed its way north.
I have several favorites which I re-read every few years;
Chesapeake James Michener
Hawaii James Michener
Shogun James Clavell
Ethan Frome Edith Wharton
Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Cruel Sea Nicholas Monsarrat
Tao Te Ching Lao-Tzu
Living Buddha, Living Christ Thich Nhat Hahn
And of course Thoreau's Walden. You can tell I am a fan of Thoreau. My copy of Walden sits on top of my bookcase along with a small bottle of water, a rock and a pine cone. The water is from Walden Pond, the rock from the site of Thoreau's cabin at the pond and the pine cone I picked up from Thoreau's grave on Author's Ridge in Concord Mass.
Chris
Hiking is like a shower......a couple of wrong turns can get you in hot water
Nice to see there's someone else that hates that book about as much as I do. A good 2/3 of the book is bashing the federal government in general and the national park service in general. At best it's mildly amusing and I would bet $$$ he made some of that crap up.
If you think the taxpayers should be operating and maintaining the A.T. you'll love it.
I have skimmed a few books while staying at hostels and the only AT books I have read entirely are those by the Barefoot Sisters. The first one is awesome and then second one falls far short by comparison.
Pain is a by-product of a good time.
Well, I'm not going to read "A Walk in the Woods", after reading some snippets, it is very un-appealing, but I did however just finish "Into the Wild". Krakauer has a way of leaving something to be desired from his non-fiction but that might just be the genre in general. Considering a lot of these books are from loosely pieced together accounts/ information sometimes the stories seem to be empty. The two books I’ve read from Krakauer have certainly felt this way at least. Maybe if I read “The Climb” it will make “Into Thin Air” feel more complete.
One question though: What’s the best piece of wilderness fiction?
...God's Country, and Scotch.
I really enjoyed the first part of A Walk in the Woods. I felt the same way about having to buy a pack cover for an expensive backpack, and the interplay between the characters as they started the hike was really funny. At least I thought so. Once he got to complaining about everything, I didn't like it much, and found it depressing.
Monkey Wrench Gang
As Far as the Eye Can See (the chapter about the two guys just starting out is hilarious)
Hatchet
Mutant Message Down Under
Mawson's Will
Heart of the Sea
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage (Lansing)
Shackleton's Forgotten Men
Ghosts of Cape Sabine
Most things that I have read off the National Geographic Adventure 100 best adventure books are really worthwhile. (Google will help you find the list. Probably.) Those that aren't, I ditch pretty quickly.
Pringles