Book Review's
Walk in the Woods
Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson was a story of adventures hikers climbing to great extents for something they enjoyed. Bill Bryson plays the main character along with his out of shape friend Stephen Katz. The two characters make a name for themselves by hiking the Apolation trail, a 2100-mile hike that stretches from Georgia to Maine. Along the way they encounter many out of ordinary situation. The book was written through the eyes of Bryson, and all the emotions and troubles he endured along the hike. Katz is an out of shape old time friend who went to college with Brison and except for one experience in Europe had been on other trips with him and hadn’t let Brison down as a traveling partner.
Walk in the Woods is a 2100-mile adventure, even though the two men don’t finish the trail and take breaks, accomplishing what they did is still a story worth telling. The book starts off by Bryson writing out Christmas cards that he is interested in hiking the trail, and a few months later he gets a call from Katz asking if he could tag along. Bryson was more than pleased to have some company. When they start the trail in Georgia, Katz is out of shape and doesn’t keep up to Bryson. So most of the time Bryson is waiting for up to an hour for Katz a few times every day. Eventually in the book Katz even gets lost for a night after wondering off the trail to go find some water. The trail takes many twists and turns for the two hikers, but what I found most interesting was how people could live there lives in the wilderness when all they are thinking about is the life they lived back home, families, bars, warm beds, and all the other accommodations you wouldn’t have out on a trail in some woods.
The book keeps the reader hooked and almost makes the reader inspired to do something like the hike Bryson and Katz accomplished. At times the tone of the two men can be boring and uninspiring, but at the same time you know that there is something that is going to come up. Bryson was big into knowing everything about the trail. What type of animals there were on it, how many people have died, and along the way they find out some amazing stories about people who hiked the trail. For example, Bryson heard a story of a man who was extremely over weight that decided to hike the whole trail just to burn of some extra pounds but he enjoyed the trail so much there was word of him hiking it again, even though he had lost a large amount of weight. Throughout the book Bryson talks more and more about how he considers himself a hiker or a mountain man, but by the end of the book Bryson and Katz had only accomplished a little over a third of the trail in total, skipping large sections and taking month long breaks.
What I liked most about this book is that after reading this, I want to go and hike the Appolation Trail. The story makes you want to push yourself and set goals. Bryson’s main point was to tell a story about his experience on the trail and that is what I am interested in. I feel if I were in his place I would have taken full advantage of it and hiked the whole trail. The book makes you want to test yourself as a person in all aspects of life, test any situation you can and make your goals a reality. Even though Bryson didn’t hike the whole trail he is a very inspiring writer. Only a few hundred people have hiked the trail. Why cant I be one of them? I am a person who loves nature and anyone that is interested in nature and adventures this is a great read. Living on rice and snickers bars for a few months in the woods isn’t exactly every one’s cup of tea, but for some people like myself it is.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in testing them self as a book of inspiration. After reading this book I felt like I could climb Mt. Everest. If a out of shape over weight man can live in the woods and hike hundreds of miles within a few months, going from being an alcoholic to a mountain man,
Fight Club
Fight Club was a movie that was based on a book. Many scenes from the movie are changed so they are not exactly the same. I saw the movie fight club probably 10 times before I read the book. Chuck Palahniuk is an amazing writer that brings the reader in with his thrill driven words. The book can be a comedy at times, and a thriller at others.
The only reason I decided to read Fight Club was because it was one of my favorite movies. The main character in the book has a weird problem; I think he is going crazy in his head. He is distracted very easily and can’t relax and get his work done. He meets a soap maker Tyler Durden, and they decided then to start a fight club.
A fight club is a club used only to take out your stress and rage, but not to hurt another member of fight club. All of the members are friends and cope with there differences outside of fight club. The main rule, no one speaks of fight club outside of fight club, was made so that the club could remain quiet and undisturbed. Tyler shows the narrator that life isn’t all about being stressed out at work, this is why most of the members join fight club, they need to take out there anger, and they enjoy it.
This book teachers the reader a lesson, you cant get though life without getting rid of your stress some how. Throughout the book the reader is kept on the edge of their toes. Tyler keeps it interesting by always making jokes or putting the members of fight club up to perform different tasks that seem outrages. Fight Club also teaches the reader other important lessons, like not taking what you have for granite, or cutting someone a break when they clearly need it. Despite the name of the book, Fight Club taught me a lot about how I want to live my life, in a tough guy type of way.