A Walk in the Woods

Technically this isn't my book, it's Melissa's, but we don't see eachother anymore and she never gave me her new address so that I could mail it back to her, which means, in short, it's mine. She had loaned it to me about a year and a half ago after we talked about my wanting to walk the Camino de Santiago. It should be known that I do not like when people recommend books to me. I have a library full of books that I purchased with the intention of one day reading. Why would I want to read something that you think I'll like, when more than likely, I won't? So A Walk in the Woods sat on my coffee table, then in my closet, then on my desk and finally to a side bookcase that I never touch.

Earlier this week a fella at the office sent me a link to an upcoming film he thought I'd like. Wouldn't ya know, it's the film version of A Walk in the Woods, starring my pal and yours, Robert Redford and another fantastic actor, Nick Nolte. (Sidebar, I never gave Nolte much thought until I saw him in Warrior and was astonished. He's so much better than I ever imagined.) Oh! And lovely Miss Emma Thompson is in it too! So I watched the trailer and thought, "Okay, that looks really, actually pretty great. I'll dig up that book from Melissa and give it a try." I went home and started chapter one, fully aware that I would probably not like it. The author, Bill Bryson, was a journalist in England, so I figured his take on hiking the Appalachian Trail would sound all hoity-toity. Ya know, "As I ascended the summit I looked out upon the wide expanse of the majestic woodlands of my homeland..." blah, blah, BLAH. But I was completely wrong. His writing is hilarious, literally causing me to bust out laughing, and it's real and informative and I am 100% sucked in and don't want to put it down. (It's also getting me excited to do the Camino. Eventually. At some point. It will happen. I'm sure of it. Especially since there are no bears on the Camino. Some ornery feral dogs, but thankfully, zero bears. The Appalachian Trail sounds utterly terrifying.) 

(post script - I am loving my way through this book but my only complaint is that Bryson uses the word Indian, which immediately throws me off because I, like most people, hear the word Indian and imagine the fellas at Palace of Asia, or my Nana's doctor, or the IT fellas at the office upstairs from me, or the lady at Dunkin' Donuts and not Jay Silverheels. Indians are from the country of India and I wish that Bryson would have said Native American or at the very least, American Indian. It doesn't come across as offensive, but it's kind of annoying.)