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I just re-read A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson. It was published in 1998. It's the one about the two guys who set out to hike the AT, and I would say the genre is "Travel Humor." For a non-fiction book it did very well in sales--it was something of a best-seller, in fact.

I laughed as hard this time as the first time I read it. In fact, several times I laughed so hard I almost had a urinary accident in my Wranglers...

The chapter about the trip to the equipment store is early on in the book and it probably is the funniest chapter in the book.

Bryson has these lines he just casually tosses out, such as "It would get me fit after years of waddlesome sloth."

And then, once on the trail, he and his buddy meet that really annoying young woman named Mary Ellen, who follows them on the trail for days. At one point she's admonishing them both for being too fat, and then: "unwisely at that moment she leaned over to get something out of her pack, displaying an expanse of backside on which you could have projected motion pictures for, let us say, an army base."

The only problem with the book is that I can read it in a day or two. Too short!

There are some classics in 'Notes from a Small Island' His best i think. Good stuff.

One of my favorite books is "A Walk in the Woods". Also read "Notes from a Small Island".

Good reading!

I wonder if the movie version is still in the works?

I agree that Bryson is a very entertaining writer, but it bugs me that he portrayed hiking as such an ordeal. I hope that on the actual trail he mostly whined inwardly, instead of out loud.

I remember reading this book on a flight to Alaska a bunch of years ago... I got quite the looks for laughing out loud and all but crying in the quiet last row of the aircraft..

Try," Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail" by Cheryl Strayed. I learned what NOT to do on a backpack trip and it has a little sex to go along with it. Was a best seller this year.

Sun Ray wrote:Try," Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail" by Cheryl Strayed. I learned what NOT to do on a backpack trip and it has a little sex to go along with it. Was a best seller this year.

Thanks. I'm at my local library right now, and will see if they will buy it. (They asked me to provide some ideas for titles, so I will!)

Great book... earned a spot on the "permanent" bookshelf along with my other favorites!!

big_load wrote:I agree that Bryson is a very entertaining writer, but it bugs me that he portrayed hiking as such an ordeal. I hope that on the actual trail he mostly whined inwardly, instead of out loud.

It wouldn't have been as funny if he hadn't whined so much.

Movie is coming out around Labor Day, starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. Here's the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx1AMfC-F2g