A Walk In The Woods is one of the most unique and funny comedy books released in the last 25 years. The book follows the story of the author, Bill Bryson, recollecting his time spent on the Appalachian Trail with his old friend, Stephen Katz, going through all the struggles that two middle-aged men who barely work out would go through hiking on a two-thousand mile long trail.

The book starts off with Bill Bryson randomly deciding to go on the Appalachian Trail. I think that this is a great start, and it really shows just how arbitrary the idea of hiking the Appalachian Trail was. He had decided that he wanted to hike the trail so that he would have an experience to write a book about, and I’m really glad he did, but he still didn’t completely know what he was getting himself in to. He invites his old friend Stephen Katz (who used to be an alcoholic but had recently become sober) and this is where the story begins.

I really liked how Bill Bryson made everything a little bit pessimistic with his writing. It seemed like whenever he said something he loved on the trail, he would follow it up with a big problem going on in the Appalachian Mountain Range. The book also follows the struggles that they had hiking, and there were many. This goes really well with his writing style, in which he kind of makes fun of himself for the enjoyment of the reader.

I think that the way that he writes about the problems in a comedic way makes me somehow care more about the problems. Whether he was talking about acid rain, invasive plants or the hunting of songbirds, I paid more attention more when he was being pessimistic, just because he writes about the situations in a way that actually makes you care about them. In this book, he writes about the problem, gives all the reasons it’s a problem/ everything that the problem affects, then only sometimes gives you a solution to the problem, which makes you actually think about the situations in the book. It is all a mix of humor and seriousness and it is a very unique way of getting the reader to actually care about problems.

The two friends grow a lot throughout the course of the book. Not necessarily in a good way most of the time, but they do learn new things. They learn that they are not necessarily as weak as they think they are, when they come out of the woods into the tourist trap of a town called Gatlinburg after spending hours hiking in the Smoky Mountains and they saw all the tourists who are eating ice-cream and thinking that a half- mile walk through the center of town is the hardest thing they’ve ever done. They also learn that they are kind of okay at hiking because people are dropping out of the trail all the time around them, while Bryson and Katz just keep on powering through.

The book also follows a period of time of when Steven has to go back to Des Moines, Indiana for some summer construction work, to come back later to do more of the Appalachian Trail. This does not happen in the movie. During this time, Bill Bryson decides to go on day hikes all around the northeast, mostly near his home in New Hampshire. This part gives the reader a lot of history about the area and the Appalachian Trail. It is all very interesting, and I learned a lot about the appalachian Mountain Range in General.

In the end, this book completely exceeded my expectations when I read it. I had heard people say it was a good book, but I had never expected how good of a book it would be. The book is much better than the movie, so if you didn’t like the movie, you will probably still like this book. If you liked the movie, you will love this book. Bill Bryson’s humor mixed with the fact that this is a true story makes this book one of the best comedy books ever written.