This book was recommended by CLEVNET library. This is an amazing read. Bill Bryson walks Appalachian trail with his friend, Katz. Book has a theme. Author describes the difficulties of hiking in various parts of the trail. This include defficult steep hikes, bugs, wild animals and then he describes interesting scientific or historical fact about that part of trail. After that he may go into bashing NPS and how the government shortsightedness has messed up the trail compared to before in 1920s.
- Description of Centrelia, PA is amazing. A town destroyed by mining where giant holes appear in the land.
- He has confusing relationship with human invasion of wilderness. Usually every nature lover is against it, but this man wants some farms on mountaintops as they improve biodiversity !!
- He kind of hates NPS. I don’t get why. I may be bombarded with a lot of NPS propaganda if I have to guess.
The way he has written about hiking is amazing. His overall description of this activity can be summarized with few words such as “difficult, boring, pointless, repetitive and beautiful”. I think the same can be said about the life in general as well. His companion is an amazing person with good sense of humor. I think that is what we need to get through the life.