A well written miserable book

If you’re looking to convince your spouse to not walk the AT I guess this works. It’s fairly well written. It may even be an accurate portrayal of a common experience.
It is also a story of a midlife crisis where a man abandons his wife for months while she holds her world together. It’s long on misery and short on wonder. Long on dates and mileages and wandering digressions, short on humanity.

There are a lot of books on the AT you can read. Try another.

My review.

Robert Rubin works at a publishing company in North Carolina. After struggling with his career for a number of years, he decides to quit his job and hike the Appalachian Trail. While it sounds like a reasonable idea, the fact that Rubin has a wife, dog and a mortgage muddies the water some. This is the story of his own personal struggles and how he seeks to work them out on the AT.

Having read 7 other memoirs of the Appalachian Trail, I still found this book a wonderful read. The writing is outstanding. The author does an great job of weaving together the components of his own story with facts about the trail. He is fairly open and honest (without giving out any real details that might take the focus of the hike) about some of the struggles of his personal life - the thing that has drawn him to the trail.

Super story!

The guy can write, but for me, his book was that of an observer rather than a participant. Too often, he seemed to step back and watch the experience, rather than open himself to the experience itself. I found this off-putting. Too often, his stance had a pinch of superiority to it. I suppose it was only that he was trying to analyze situations, but I didn't invest enough in the author to appreciate his insights.

Perhaps my enjoyment of this book was tempered by the fact that I didn't find the author to be a likeable fellow. Other readers might have a different reaction.

the story of a man who was kind of "beaten down" by his career as an editor in NY; subsequently finds that becoming immersed in the arduous task of thru hiking the appalachian trail helps to replace one mindset with another. The trek becomes not only a strong goal but a form of therapy.I especially liked the book because it was always more about the trail.

Well written account of a thruhiker's journey. His question was not answered. But the search gives one pause for thought.

It's another hiking narrative of a guy's trip up the A.T. This one's got a little more going for it than many. He has an on-going stressful relationship with his wife that the distance doesn't seem to help. And also he weaves in a lot of local history, geography, ecology and so on. He worked in publishing before hiking in 1997 ... and he's worked for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy since 1999. So that could hint that he knows about writing and about the Trail, too. It's a good and thoughtful read.

I really enjoyed it :)

I did not enjoy this. I saw no hope in the main character and the trail report was not as poetically written as I would expect from a poet. I wanted more from his relationship with his family and was definitely left lacking.

I really enjoyed this book. Sometimes lyrical, always
funny, well written.

I am a real fan of walking adventures and this is one
of my favorites.

One of the best books about hiking the Appalachian Trail. If you have ever thought of walking the AT this is a must read.

I read a lot of hiking stories, mostly about the AT. This one was just OK. To me, it seemed the author made the actual story secondary to trying to be poetic.

The "verse" seemed forced to me, as were the periodic allusions to Thoreau. I skipped over several paragraphs of rambling descriptions.

The highlight of AT stories for me are the interactions of thru hikers and the unexpected friendships. This book didn't have those in any real detail and I missed that.

No matter what, the author wrote a book and walked the AT, two of my dreams, so he definitely has my admiration.