Title: Driving Along the Trail Doesn't Make You a Hiker
Product review: I read this a decade ago, and thought it fun. On re-reading I've come away with a different conclusion: Bryson's book is more about senseless complaining and girlish terror than a representation of the love of hiking. His constant fear of bear, wolverine, mountain lion, little-debbie cakes, blackfly, drowning, starving, repetitive complaints about murder and crime, exotic viruses and PTSD as a result of hiking overemphasizes a mere micro-fragment of the whole story. His treatment is biased to an impossible degree and under-inspiring. If he had to write about Disney World, his treatise likely would expound upon the tediousness of waiting in line, the vastness of the boredom and the quantification of the aggregate hours waited and its unnproductiveness (perhaps the impact of queuing on national economies). What Bryson demonstrates is that in-spite of the opportunity (that many cubical-jockeys would clamor for), he has learned nothing. I'm appalled.
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