Book #11

Wild

Cheryl Strayed

So I told you guys I would be reading this after I finished "A Walk in the Woods" and I lived up to that claim. This is my second non-fiction book this year, the second hiking book this year and the eleventh book in general. 

Just to compare this and "A Walk in the Woods" for a second: "Wild" is about a young woman, "Walk" is about a middle-aged man. "Wild" is about the PCT, the Pacific Crest Trail, on the West Coast (duh) and "Walk" is about the AT, the Appalachian Trail, on the East Coast. "Wild" reads like a memoir, "Walk" as a funny info book.

I don't know why, but I am so drawn to hiking. And by hiking, I mean the hiking that happens in "Wild" and "Walk"; trail hiking, long distance hiking, staying out in the woods for weeks on end. The kind of hiking that would leave me with pictures that looked like this:

But really, I know hiking like Cheryl Strayed did in "Wild" is a living hell. I know it because she told me so, in a charming, lively, funny way. She goes to hike the trail to find herself, and she does, along with a bunch of rattle snakes, deer, elk, bears, blisters, missing toe nails, intense heat and huge piles of snow. It's a really great book, and as hard as she makes hiking the PCT sound, she also makes it sound wild and alluring. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough and try to hike a little bit. Maybe.

But for now, hiking is in my future just as much as finishing 100 books in a year is. 

11 down, 89 to go. Books, not miles.