Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

The Weekly Read

Take a hike: Review of A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Years ago, when my husband and I were on our honeymoon, we hiked a mountain and stayed at a lodge in the Smokies. It was close to, or maybe part of, the Appalachian Trail, and it was a beautifully challenging experience to spend most of a day hiking to where you were going to sleep and being without running water for short time. A few years later we discovered a few access points to the Appalachian Trail near where we lived in Pennsylvania, and we did a short day hike.

a walk in the woodsThough I don’t have any plans to ever hike the whole AT, I am impressed with and awed by people who do it. A friend’s son recently got back from hiking half the trail, so his experience was fresh in my mind as I picked up Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for my review through the Blogging for Books program.)

I had never read anything by Bryson before, but I learned quickly that he’s funny as well as observant. The book is full of not only thought-provoking musings about nature but hysterical anecdotes about the trouble he and his friend, Stephen, find themselves in as they hike the trail.

Bryson’s book is part memoir, part travelogue, part research paper as he includes historical information about the trail and the things that have happened on the trail along with facts about the park service. I learned a few things, was entertained and inspired. Reading this book made me want to take a hike–literally.

“Woods are not like other spaces. To begin with, they are cubic. Their trees surround you, loom over you, press in from all sides. Woods choke off views and leave you muddled and without bearings. They make you feel small and confused and vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs. Stand in a desert or prairie and you know you are in a big space. Stand in a woods and you only sense it. They are a vast, featureless nowhere. And they are alive.” — A Walk in the Woods, p. 44

And although (spoiler alert) Bryson doesn’t hike the entire AT (and now that I think about it, that wasn’t the promise of the book), he does hike significant portions of it and discovers some beautiful areas of the eastern part of the United States. I’ve got a few places added to my must-visit list.

I’ll be adding more of Bryson’s books to my to-read list also.

I’ve heard the movie is not as good as the book (is it ever?) but I’d be interested to see it anyway. If you like the outdoors, even the occasional walk in the woods, check this one out.

This post contains affiliate links, which simply means I get a small return on anything you might buy through those links.

Rooted in reality: Review of Promise to Keep by Elizabeth Byler Younts

I’ve made it no secret that I have a like-dislike relationship with Amish fiction. It is not my favorite genre in general, except when I find a series or an author that changes my mind about the genre as a whole.

And the books Elizabeth Byler Younts has written fit that latter description. Her three-book series, The Promise of Sunrise, has a unique slant–it is Amish fiction set during World War 2 and addresses the tension of a country at war and a community committed to peace.

promise to keepThe final book, Promise to Keep, released this week, and its story centers on a young unmarried Amish woman who has been raising the deaf daughter of an active-duty soldier. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for my review.) Esther Detweiler has been raising Daisy, the daughter of her shunned cousin, since the girl’s mother died. When Esther’s grandmother dies, she and Daisy are all they have left of family. Until Daisy’s father returns.

Joe Garrison is home from war, but the war haunts him, especially at night. He wants to be a father to his daughter, but she has no initial connection to him. As Joe and Esther work to bring father and daughter back together, their feelings for each other grow beyond the love they both have for Daisy.

Though the story started a little slow for me–which isn’t unusual for Amish fiction; I find the pace is often slower, a reflection, I think, of the lifestyle being portrayed–by the middle I was turning page after page, wondering how this was going to work out for everyone. I so appreciate the perspective of someone like Younts, who does not tell a rosy, all-is-well story without conflict or realism, and who has the family heritage–she was Amish as a child–to lend credibility to the setting and culture. Both of those characteristics are what keep me coming back to her Amish stories. I hope we have more to look forward to.

The other books in the series are Promise  to Return and Promise to Cherish but they do not have to be read in order. (Book #2, Promise to Cherish, was my favorite of the three.)