Appalachia

Bill Bryson’s books offer environmental ethics with a light touch

A Walk in the Woods, the venerable travel writer's best-selling 1998 account of hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail, conjured memories of adventures I'd had as a kid in the forests where I grew up. Bryson seems to capture my dueling feelings about the woods: beautiful and inspiring from a distance -- "an America that millions of people scarcely know exists" -- yet disorienting and at times menacing from within. "[The] trees surround you, loom over you, press in from all sides," Bryson writes. "Woods choke off views and leave you muddled and without bearings. They make you feel small and confused and vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs."