The book starts with Bryson explaining his curiosity about the Appalachian trail near his house. He and his old friend Stephen Katz start hiking the trail from Georgia in the South and stumble in the beginning with the difficulties of getting used to their equipment; Bryson also soon realizes how difficult it is to travel with his friend, who is a crude, overweight recovering alcoholic and even less prepared for the ordeal than he is. Overburdened, they soon discard much extra food and equipment to lighten their loads. "A walk in the woods" Is a funny book, full of dry humor in the native-American grain. It is also a serious book. Nothing really terrible happened to the author, but by playing on our fears, he captures the ambivalence of our feelings about the wild. We revere it But we're also Intimidated. We want to protect animals but we also want to kill them. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but they also "choke off views and leave you muddled and without bearings." he continues: "they make you feel small and confused and vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs." Bryson's acute eye is a wise witness to this beautiful but fragile trail and as he tells its fascinating history, he makes a moving plea for the conservation of America's last great wilderness. An adventure, a comedy and a celebration, a walk in the woods has become a modern classic of travel literature. In this book The physically unfit, bear-averse and comfort-loving Bryson and his even less adept friend traverse portions of the 2, 000 mile trail, squabbling and complaining the whole way. The misadventures are interspersed with more serious discussion of the history, ecology and culture of the trail.

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. A backpacking expedition in 1973 brought him to England where he met his wife and decided to settle. He wrote for the English newspapers The Times and The Independent for many years, writing travel articles to supplement his income. He lived with his family in North Yorkshire before moving back to the States in 1995, to Hanover, New Hampshire, with his wife and four children. In 2003 he and his family moved back to England, where they currently reside.

The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson's hilarious first travel book, chronicles a trip in his mother's Chevy around small town America. Since then, he has written several more, including notable bestsellers, A Walk in the Woods, I'm A Stranger Here Myself (published in Britain as Notes from a Big Country), and In a Sunburned Country (published in Britain as Down Under).

His other books include Bill Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe, Made in America, The Mother Tongue and Bill Bryson's African Diary. His latest book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, was published in Spring 2003.