The best parts of "A Walk in the Woods" worked because not much happened along the trail in order to fill in the holes, Bryson became something of an expert, studying and researching people, flora, fauna, history and park politics. He's also the author of the 1998 bestseller "A Walk in the Woods," a travel diary that details his aborted attempts to hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail. He's an American who wrote travel books and newspapered in England for 20 years before returning to New Hampshire with his wife and family in 1996. The other kind is simply fascinating - someone like Lewis Lapham of Harper's Magazine, who can make a connection between Louis XIV's court and Reagan's cabinet one month and write on cultural commodification the next.īill Bryson, the author of the set of columns collected in "I'm a Stranger Here Myself," is neither fascinating nor an expert. One is the expert - someone like Robert Christgau of the Village Voice, a guy who's breathed music for 30 years and knows more about the subject than Billboard does. There are two sorts of columnists worth reading.
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