Ploughing through Wild (A Journey from Lost to Found) by Cheryl Strayed - a memoir of her epic trek along the Pacific Crest Trail. At the moment, am more taken by the epigraphs at the start of each section than the narrative.... in particular the most recent 'Never never never give up'. Winston Churchill.
Coincidentally visit Chartwell in leafy Kent, his country house, where the bluebell woods are more captivating than the crowded, slightly faded rooms. It is a National Trust property on a Bank Holiday Sunday after all - what do I expect.
In the meantime, Cheryl in Wild is hobbling along 1,100 miles of the west coast of America, alone. It's a good read but has the feel of a book written long after the event (in 2012 - the trek was in 1995). (Is this fictionalised autobiography, like Siegfried Sassoon? Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man etc written in the late 20s, long after the events he describes.)
Though in Wild at the end, an encounter with two very creepy and possibly predatory men on a fishing expedition made me truly frightened for her - and was I jolted out of my scepticism. And her memories of her mother (who died a quick and terrible death from cancer) are very moving.
But not, somehow, a book to return to.
Coincidentally visit Chartwell in leafy Kent, his country house, where the bluebell woods are more captivating than the crowded, slightly faded rooms. It is a National Trust property on a Bank Holiday Sunday after all - what do I expect.
Though in Wild at the end, an encounter with two very creepy and possibly predatory men on a fishing expedition made me truly frightened for her - and was I jolted out of my scepticism. And her memories of her mother (who died a quick and terrible death from cancer) are very moving.
But not, somehow, a book to return to.
