Bill Bryson has made a living out of traveling and then writing about it. In The Lost Continent he re-created the road trips of his childhood; in Neither Here nor There he retraced the route he followed as a young backpacker traversing Europe. When this American transplant to Britain decided to return home, he made a farewell walking tour of the British countryside and produced Notes from a Small Island. Once back on American soil and safely settled in New Hampshire, Bryson once again hears the siren call of the open road--only this time it's a trail. The Appalachian Trail, to be exact. In A Walk in the Woods Bill Bryson tackles what is, for him, an entirely new subject: the American wilderness. Accompanied only by his old college buddy Stephen Katz, Bryson starts out one March morning in north Georgia, intending to walk the entire 2,100 miles to trail's end atop Maine's Mount Katahdin.

Very uneven and sometimes preachy

This not a bad book. Sections of it are quite enjoyable, in fact, but an uneven writing style and lapses into preachiness (even when appropriate) keep it from being a better book. I don't mind some commentary about the absurdity of things, but it comes a bit too often in a book supposedly about walking the Appalachian Trail.

There is some profanity, more annoying due to its sudden use after some time without it than the fact that it's there at all. It's almost like Bryson thought, "Hey, I haven't been crude in a few pages so let me throw in a couple of pertinent words."

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this as a book to purchase - check your local library for a copy.