74 pages • 2 hours read
Bill BrysonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
The overarching theme running throughout A Walk in the Woods is the interplay and contrasts between wilderness and civilization. This thematic element, as Bryson explores it, isn’t one of comparison but rather how both exist as the recurring worlds that Bill Bryson and Stephen Katz alternately inhabit as they attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail. The exploration focuses on how Bryson and Katz transition from one world to the other. This is the case primarily because they hike and camp portions of the trail, sometimes for weeks at a time in the wilderness, but at various intervals throughout their adventure always return to civilization, sometimes only for a single night. Hiking and camping day after day until reaching civilization in the form of a nearby town with a motel, restaurant, and laundry facilities is a process that repeats itself over and over throughout the first half of the book. Part 2, however, takes on a different type of examination because Bryson is now hiking alone and typically does so by driving to various AT locations to hike and then moving on to another or, when he’s near his home, by doing a series of day hikes and returning home every day.
By Bill Bryson
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson
In a Sunburned Country
Bill Bryson
Notes From A Small Island
Bill Bryson
One Summer: America, 1927
Bill Bryson
The Body: A Guide for Occupants
Bill Bryson
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Bill Bryson
The Lost Continent
Bill Bryson
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
Bill Bryson
Action & Adventure
View Collection
Animals in Literature
View Collection
Anthropology
View Collection
Appearance Versus Reality
View Collection
Books on U.S. History
View Collection
Community
View Collection
Community Reads
View Collection
Earth Day
View Collection
Friendship
View Collection
Inspiring Biographies
View Collection
Laugh-out-Loud Books
View Collection
New York Times Best Sellers
View Collection
Politics & Government
View Collection
Science & Nature
View Collection