by Bill Bryson; narrated by Willian Roberts
I don’t know the narrator, but he does a very good job of telling this heart-warming and funny story.
We had a copy of this book as an audiocassette (different narrator) back in the 1990s, and listened to it on car journeys with our children. The story encouraged us to seek out bits of the Appalachian Trail when visiting the USA in autumn 2001, and walk them, even for just a mile or two. The abridged story – and the narration – were entertaining and often hilarious.
This is the full text of the book, and thus goes into more historical and geographic detail – which is in itself quite interesting. The story of the two middle-aged men who decide to hike the Appalachian Trail from south to north, and end up doing so, in part and in short spurts, is invigorating. I recommend this story, and this audiobook version, to anyone who is by nature, or though the exigencies of Covid-19 lockdown, an armchair traveller.
(Note: Don’t judge this book on the film starring Robert Redford. How Redford and his companion, both around 70 at the time of filming, could be cast as the 40-something Bryson and the somewhat less vigorous Katz, is beyond me. It just doesn’t work.)
A rug and a book 