A Walk in the Woods

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£8.99

On discovering the Appalachian Trail runs through the New Hampshire community he has settled in, Bill Bryson impulsively decides that he must walk it, all of it -and it’s the longest continuous footpath in the world.

So Bryson and his friend Stephen Katz, who we met before in Neither Here Nor There, set out to hike the route that stretches along the east coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine, past some of the most arresting and celebrated landscapes in America.

The 2,200 miles ahead of them is littered with bears, moose, bobcats, rattlesnakes, poisonous plants, disease-bearing ticks and the odd murderer. But for Bryson, the most alarming are the people he meets along the way - whose favourite pastime is to discuss the merits of the external-frame backpack.

Yet he gamely struggles on, dragging his fickle companion with him in this wickedly funny adventure, to achieve his lifetime’s ambition - not to die outdoors.