Wild - Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday56

  

I just featured WILD - From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail on my Teaser Tuesday post (here), but I thought the book deserved more than two sentences so I'm posting about it again today. This story really impressed me. It's the nonfiction tale of a woman who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert of California to the Oregon-Washington border. What a feat!

Here's the book's beginning (prologue):
The trees were tall, but I was taller, standing above them on a steep mountain slope in northern California. Moments before, I'd removed my hiking boots and the left one had fallen into those trees, first catapulting into the air when my enormous backpack toppled onto it, then skittering across the gravelly trail and flying over the edge. It bounced off of a rocky outcropping several feet beneath me before disappearing into the forest canopy below, impossible to retrieve.

And here are a few sentences from 56% on my Kindle:
I ate the Slim Jim first, washing it down with the last of my Budweiser, and then the butterscotch candies, all six of them, one after the other, and then--still hungry, always hungry--turned my attention to the can of baked beans. I pried it open in tiny increments with the impossible can-opening device on my Swiss army knife, and then, too lazy to rummage through my pack for my spoon, I scooped them out with the knife itself and ate them--hobo-style--from the blade.

Genre: Nonfiction / Women's Adventure
Length: 338 Pages
Amazon Link: Wild

If you're curious about the Pacific Crest Trail or would like more info, here's a link to a beautiful video: Tell It On The Mountain

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Wild - Teaser Tuesday

Maybe it's because I walked almost halfway across Spain on El Camino de Santiago. Or maybe it's simply because I appreciate the beauty of the outdoors. But for whatever reason, I'm enthralled by Cheryl Strayed's nonfiction story of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. In Wild - From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, not only does the author tell of her trek from the Mojave Desert of California to the Oregon-Washington border, but she also reveals the story of her life.

Strayed's account of the adventure isn't a tale of Wonder Woman defeating Mother Nature. In fact, she was ill-prepared for the challenges she faced and many of her problems could have been avoided by doing more research. But that doesn't lessen the significance of her accomplishment. Her journey makes for a heck of a good story (and I don't usually read nonfiction).

Teaser (from 26% on my Kindle):
Without some kind of ice ax training, there wasn't any question that I was far more likely to impale myself with it than I was to use it to prevent myself from sliding off the side of a mountain. On my trailside breaks that day, in the hundred-plus-degree heat, I flipped through the pages of my guidebook to see if it said anything about how to use an ice ax. It did not.

Genre: Nonfiction / Women's Adventure
Length: 338 Pages
Amazon Link: Wild

If you're curious about the Pacific Crest Trail or would like more info, here's a link to a beautiful video. 

Tell It On The Mountain

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away -- you don't want to ruin the book for others)
• Share the title and author too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers
• Leave a comment on MizB's Teaser Tuesday post (HERE) and include your link so everyone can find your post.