1) After saying I had no interest in reading Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, I succumbed to the allure of the discount book bin and figured I would give Didion another shot, despite still not having read the ONE book of hers I was originally interested in (Slouching Towards Bethlehem). It was sad in a matter-of-factual way. I re-learned that privileged famous people grieve and suffer like the rest of us. I felt her loss even as she talked about multiple homes and Malibu beaches and Corvettes. And that pretty much sums up the extent of my impression.
(Apparently we loved her in 2015? How Joan Didion Became the Ultimate Literary Celebrity & Toward a Unified Theory of Joan Didion)
Bottom line: I'll continue to have a "meh / okay" reaction to Didion that will be either confirmed or rebuffed after Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
2) I zoomed excitedly through Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, subtitled "Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail." The book ended and I needed it to keep going for another 200 pages, or 2,000 pages. Returning to my last entry and thoughts on contemporary travel writing, Bryson avoids the "expert witness explaining the natives" trap through his humility and humor -- he's just a out-of-shape everyman who wants to try hiking the trail with his friend, and he happens to be well-informed about the trail's ecological history. There's no soaring rhetoric and little/no existential musings about nature or long-distance hiking ... and that's okay for this story. On a personal note, the book also rekindled a life goal of hiking the AT (section-hiking, not thru-hiking, let's be real). Thanks, Bill Bryson!
Bottom line: Awesome easy read, highly recommend even if you never want to hike the AT!
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| AT marker at Pen-Mar, photo by yours truly |
