Audiobook Review: A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (narrated by Rob McQuay; 9 hours 47 minutes) - Bill Bryson is a favorite travel writer of mine - I love his wry observations and dry wit. In A Walk in the Woods, Bryson takes on the Appalachian Trail. In addition to facts about the AT and a brief ecological survey, Bryson does what he does best - recounts his experiences on the trail with self-deprecating humor and keenly observes those around him.

Bryson decides to tackle the AT despite a relative lack of hiking experience or even stellar physical fitness.  Needing a partner, he recruits his college roommate, Steven Katz, to join him on the trail. Katz is even less well-prepared for the rigors of hiking hours each day and his inexperience and misunderstanding about what lies before them is evidenced by his hiking pack which is full of heavy canned food and Twinkies.  Bryson seems to take some pleasure in musing at Katz's ineptitude if only because it makes him the superior hiker. Katz certainly gives Bryson material to work with in his funny re-telling of their time on the trail but there are really no shortage of characters encountered by the two along the trail.

Perhaps their funniest encounter, however, was with a bear while camping one evening. Bryson so perfectly describes the scene, including his absolute terror, that I found myself laughing out loud while listening.  Prior to the scene, there had been much commentary from Bryson about bears and his fear of them which made the scene all the funnier.

“Black bears rarely attack. But here's the thing. Sometimes they do. All bears are agile, cunning and immensely strong, and they are always hungry. If they want to kill you and eat you, they can, and pretty much whenever they want. That doesn't happen often, but - and here is the absolutely salient point - once would be enough.” 

Bryson also tosses in some commentary on  people's general lack of respect for nature

and inability to peacefully coexist with it - you are either immersed in nature doing a trek like the AT or completely divorced from it living in a land of concrete with little natural influence.  Over time, nature has become less interwoven into people's daily lives. His other favorite commentary, despite his own admitted less than stellar fitness level, is about our lack of movement.

“I know a man who drives 600 yards to work. I know a woman who gets in her car to go a quarter of a mile to a college gymnasium to walk on a treadmill, then complains passionately about the difficulty of finding a parking space. When I asked her once why she didn't walk to the gym and do five minutes less on the treadmill, she looked at me as if I were being willfully provocative. 'Because I have a program for the treadmill,' she explained. 'It records my distance and speed, and I can adjust it for degree of difficulty.' It hadn't occurred to me how thoughtlessly deficient nature is in this regard.” 

 My Thoughts
This is another winner from Bryson for me. I was a little disappointed to see he doesn't read the unabridged version of the book (only abridged) and it took be some time to get used to the the narrator's voice - likely because I had been looking forward to Bryson's dry delivery. Over time, I got used to his narration and felt he did a good job telling Bryson's story but would have preferred to listen to Bryson.

While I enjoy day hikes, I have no grand designs to hike the AT and this book did not inspire me to do that. Rather, it allowed me to get the AT experience and learn about the trail without actually having to hike it myself. I had a lot of laughs along the way an enjoyed seeing how the experience changed Bryson and Katz. Whether or not you are a hiker, you will find a lot to like in A Walk in the Woods.