A Walk in the Woods and Wild

Both Bryson and Strayed tackle the hiking saga: Bryson on the Appalachian Trail and Strayed on the PCT. Interestingly, while Wild was published in 2012 and A Walk in the Woods was published in 1998, both Bryson and Strayed completed their hikes around the same time. Bryson's book, he admits, is more of stunt (he pitched the idea to his agent before starting out) but Strayed's is the real deal. Her mother's sudden death and Strayed's subsequent self-destructive spiral drove her to set out on her thru-hike from California to Washington.  

Bryson's account is overly clever, often biting, and goes out of its way to disparage nearly every character introduced aside from the author. Still, it's a quick read and though Bryson isn't very likable, he does deftly weave in a lot of interesting background information on the Appalachian Trail.

Strayed's memoir about her mother's death and her own redemption on the PCT is beautiful and empowering. The prose is sparse but honest. Trust me when I say it's moving. After reading this, I quickly put in an inter-library loan for Tiny Beautiful Things and ordered her novel Torch. I can't wait to see more from her.  

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