this is my favorite AT book. A great read for anyone interested in hiking and the outdoors.

I think the author did a very god job of building up a degree of suspense at the end and he also kept the "action" going at a consistent interesting pace.

I love the idea of thru-hiking the AT, but probably like this book it would start out really interesting and exciting and then eventually get monotonous. By the end I started to feel like the author and and just hope the the hike to end.

I have always wanted to hike the entire Appalachian Trail and have been enthralled with hearing about anyone else that has, this is another one of those stories. Robert did complete the entire journey and speaks about the day to day life and his thoughts during the trek. While I enjoyed Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. This is more of what I was looking for, less side stories and deviations from the story and more what actually happens on the trails.

This is my third AT book, so many of the place names are familiar. He quits his job as a fiction editor (and doesn't know who Kilgore Trout is? Really?) and goes on this hike for 6 months. It causes a lot of friction in his marriage and frankly I'm surprised that his wife didn't dump him because she was so ticked off.

I think he needed the time to get his head on straight, but perhaps there was a better way to work it out with his wife beforehand.

Great book for the learning about the Appalachian Trail thruhiker sub-culture! Wished I could have enjoyed Robert's personal journey a bit more.

I've been reading a number of hiking memoirs and for the most part enjoy them. This one was fine, but nothing special. Some make you feel as if you are right there with them, meeting their fellow hikers, muddling through less than desirable shelters, sweltering or freezing, trying to stay dry, sharing their highs and lows. Rubin's certainly gets across the basics of his hike but that was about it. I still think that Bill Bryson's and David Miller's are the best of the bunch so far.

Based on the author’s educational and professional background you’d expect the book to be well written - and it is. Much more so than other A.T. books I’ve read. Overall I rate it a five star, but the reader needs to understand a few things. If you have no prior knowledge of the AT then you’ll get from the author more than an account of his trail experience. You’ll get some history and some geology knowledge as well. But if all you want is his trail exploits then you’ll be skipping a lot of paragraphs and pages. If you want both, you’ll certainly get it.

I did enjoy the read, and kudos to the author for hiking the trail. Quite an accomplishment! But one negative (and this is clearly opinion) is that he takes a bit of a negative tone at times but I appreciate the honesty. Let’s face it, when you spend six months on the trail, you’ll have some negative emotions at times and I appreciate that he shared them. This is his account, of his hike, and I give him credit for telling his tale honestly.

Again, five stars overall and I would be interested in reading more of his writing.

Oh, and for perspective on my review. I’m in mid 60s, I’ve hiked for decades, I’ve spent over 2-1/2 years sleeping in a tent, but never for more than 5 days at a time, hiked a small chunk of the AT but certainly not as a thru hiker …. But I dream of thru hiking . At this point, it probably won’t happen.

My husband read this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. He said he felt like he was hiking the trail with the author and recommended that I read it with the hope that I would come to understand why he loves the AT so much.
The story was exciting and well paced. I very much enjoyed the other hikers and the trail nicknames. But, I had to force myself through the book because I couldn't stand the author. Basically, this guy hates his job and hates his suburban lifestyle. He thinks that if he quits his job and hits the AT for 6 months, he will find himself or figure out what is missing in his life. Unfortunately, he has a wife and a mortgage and other bothersome things adults are tied to. I couldn't get over this guy whining for two thousand miles about himself and his guilt at leaving his wife saddled with everything back home. He struck me as so self centered- why drop out of life for six months? Why not just take some Lexipro and therapy and look for another job? Yeah - these thoughts ruined the book for me. I appreciate the honesty, but I was too annoyed to enjoy the story.

Rubin is known for his humor in new locations. Sadly on this trip his book lacks any humor and worse, is misleading. Hiking the Appalachian trail is a pilgrimage for hundreds every year, and finishing the over 1000 mile trail is heralded as a major accomplishment. Rubin drops off the trail, takes months off, then joins the trail farther ahead. After finishing, he claims that he hiked the trail when in fact he did not. Many who hike the Trail view Rubin as, at worse, a lier, or better, a mere failure. Dozens of books exist from hikers who actually did hike the entire Trail and several are far more humorous.

I finished On the Beaten Path recently and have to say it's one of the most lyrical books on the AT experience I've ever read. I love Rubin's writing, as I should, since he was an editor before hitting the trail and made the journey after becoming disillusioned with his job, along with the difficulties editors face, which I know first hand. Slogging through lots of stories to find the gems and then once you do so, the pain of writing rejection letters, and even having to reject good writing simply because there's no room.
Rubin's descriptions are poetic and vibrant, his approaches change as he is transformed by the trip and the spiritual nature, not in any heavy handed way, more the way one feels when they stand at a summit in awe of the vision stretched out before, above and below them. He can translate this into words and therefore into our minds and hearts. This is a book I'll read over and over. It is an end-to- end, shelter by shelter NOBO relating of the trek, which at this point in educating myself about the trail, I enjoy. It makes it easier for me to look up sections as Loner goes through each particular area so I can imagine what he's seeing.
The human story is just as vivid as the nature and travel experience. Rubin honestly accounts the confusion and unsettled discomfort he feels and which drives him to the trail, despite the fact it is a hardship on his wife. We are allowed to come to an understanding, as he does, of how each hiker is transformed by the experience and via a ripple effect so are those in their lives. This remarkable weaving of many perspectives of the Trail helps us understands why some people "need" to make this journey. Some may see it as an escapist act, but in the larger vision, it is not a running away from the world but a running towards the true north authentic self.I agree with Bryson in looking at the attempted thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail as a sort of pilgrimage, something each culture needs as a sort of initiation, a coming to terms of what's important and how one must be transformed, an act which minds like Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell considered imperative to the growth of each person.
While not as irreverent as Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods", Rubin's book still has its funny bits, and while not as detailed as David Miller's book AWOL on the Appalachian Trail, with it's organized info, I found On the Beaten Path less dry for a non hiker who is looking more for a story than for a tool to use to plan a hike.
So far, I think Rubin's book is my favorite on the Appalachian Trail, a profound story on both an inner and outer level, of what he calls a pilgrimage. Rubin masterfully blends the powerful encounters of human nature and Mother Nature into a vivid portrayal of this monumental task.

I've read a number of books written by people who hiked the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail. They all seem to be at a crisis point in their lives. Some have lost a job, or simply gotten sick of their job and quit (as in Robert Alden Rubin's case). Some have gotten a divorce or their spouse had died recently. For anyone who is over about 25 or so, it seems it would take a pretty powerful motivation to spend six months walking up to 20 miles or more every day through all kinds of weather.

For Rubin, his choice to hike the AT seems to be a way to avoid making a decision about his future. He hated his job as an editor of nonfiction books at a publishing company and so he quit. His wife Cathy understood that, I think, but when Rubin decided to spend six months walking the AT, leaving Cathy to hold hearth and home together, she was not quite as understanding. Frankly, I was surprised they were still married by the time Rubin wrote the epilogue, seven months after he had finished walking the AT. They were taking separate vacations at that time, so who knows what the future holds for them?

The main reason I gave this book two stars instead of my standard three (readable with minimal flaws) is that for large portions of the book, reading was a hard slog. It becomes very obvious that Rubin's work as an editor of nonfiction books influenced his writing, despite the fact that he has a degree in creative writing. In other books I have read about thruhikers on these 2,000-mile trails, their personal journey is as important as their physical journey. Rubin ends his trek without coming to any conclusion about his life and in fact when he wrote the epilogue seven months later he still didn't have a job.

The author information on the book jacket states that Rubin now works as a senior editor for the Appalachian Trail Conference, which seems like an ideal job for him. It required a move from Florida to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. One has to wonder how his wife felt about that. I imagine she was glad that he got a job. Please note I realize that the relationship between the author and his wife is none of my business, but he wrote extensively about it in the book so it is natural to speculate about whether they were able to find a middle ground and work out their differences.

For most people it seems these extremely long thruhikes bring about a fundamental change in their lives and even their character. For Rubin, it seems to have brought out something that was already there, simmering underneath. I would recommend this book only for diehard thruhiker fans. I fear I am becoming one - a fan, that is, unfortunately I am too old and have too many health problems to be more than an armchair hiker.