Saturday, November 15, 2008

Eat your heart out Bill Bryson

I hear that Bill Bryson's admittedly quite humorous tale of his half-assed hump of the Appalachian Trail is about to be immortalized on the big screen. Do I sound jealous? I might be, if not for the occasional letter from a reader such as the one below. Every time I start to feel a little down about the obscurity of my own Appalachian Trail tale, something magical happens. This time, the magic's name was Sara. Thank you, Sara. You made my day. And you will continue to make my day whenever I take a moment to reread your lovely words.

"I've been enjoying Dead Men Hike No Trails, reading in fits and spurts, hiding the book from my bosses who don't know I'm heading to Georgia in March. (I haven't finished your book. But I'm about half a bottle of wine in and feeling a little spooked...) Your tale is intimate, and thankfully so, because who better to tell about how much I've savored this read, than the author? And how often does the reader, especially an anxious one like myself, find it necessary (let alone possible or comfortable) to write the author?

"As your words walk through my home state of Massachusetts and my obnoxious roommate yells around the kitchen, I have my haven of the book and my music. When you wrote "transfixed by Radiohead's Pyramid Song" I gasped and physically threw the book to my feet. That was the song playing on my iPod. So in whatever event coincidence is, whatever forces bring music and reading and dreams together, I appreciate this otherwise superficial connection with you. Thanks for making that possible." - Sara Haxby
(Read Sara's blog!)



Give someone you know the gift of the freedom of six months in the woods this holiday season by picking up a copy of Dead Men from independent booksellers Powells.com, or from the author at Jigglebox.com should you desire an autographed copy.

Also, if you have read Dead Men Hike No Trails but not reviewed it, please take a moment to say a few words about it purely on the level of did you enjoy it, did it inspire you, etc, at Powells.com, a vendor I'd much prefer to see readers buying it from than the big corporate A-hole-a-Zon.

Thank you. -RSM