[at-l] New Thread---

[rockdancer97 at comcast.net (Arthur Gaudet)]

Here's the list of 10 books I read on my '97 thru, 7 each on my hikes in '98 and
'00. A few were acquired along the trail, some I had sent to me along the way.
But as the years went on I started to enjoy the randomness of my selections. Now
I really enjoy finding a shelter book, carrying it for a few days and leaving it
at another shelter. These I sign and date and hope they continue their lives
moving up & down the trail. In general I no longer keep my books but try to hand
them off to curious readers, hoping that the book will pass through more hands
on the way to a landfill. I've marked the shelter books with an S. --RockDancer

1997 thru hike:
1. Redi, Robert	Fag Hag
   Story of Natalie who loves Peter who loves Lloyd. Campy and twisted,
tongue-in-cheek writing that ended up like a Stephen King novel.
2. Cameron, Peter	The Weekend
   Lyle and Robert visit John and Marian at their country home. 
3. Jenkins, Peter	 A Walk Across America
The 1973-75 trip from NY to Louisiana, includes scenes on the AT, in Damascus VA
and Murphy NC (where his path crossed John Muir's). Became a National Geographic
article.
4. Hemingway, Ernest 	The Sun Also Rises (S)
   Story of Brett (Lady Ashley) and her men, including Jake who acts as a pimp,
friend and perhaps eunuch. 
5. Sir Alfred Lansing 	Endurance (S)
   The story of Shackleton.
6. Roscoe, Will	Queer Spirits
   Myths from many cultures regarding.
7. Holleran, Andrew	Dancers from the Dance
   Story of Mallone and Sutherland in NYC and on Fire Island mid-late 1970's.  
8. Bergman, David (editor)	The Violet Quill Reader
   The emergence of gay writing after Stonewall. 
9. Eliot, George	Silas Marner (S)
   A surprising story of redemption at many levels. I picked it up in Port
Clinton, PA.
10. Marquez, Gabriel Garcia	One Hundred Years of Solitude (S)
Mixture of magic and reality in 6 generations of the Buendias family. Each
generation, watched over by Ursula, has a character suffering from solitude and
it's effects.

These are from my hike in '98, from Katahdin to North Adams, MA.
1. Leopold, Aldo	A Sand County Almanac
2. James, P.D.	A Taste of Death (S)
3. Krakauer, Jon	Into The Wild
4. Thomson, David	Into the Shining Mountains (S)
   Minimalist camping is detailed and he exaggerates his struggles and dangers
(or is he really that stupid?). 
5. Christie, Agatha	Murder in Mesopotamia (S)
6. Hawthorne, Nathaniel	Maypole of Merrymount (S)
7. O'Connor, Flannery	The Violent Bear It Away

And from my '00 hike south on the AT to Waynesboro:

1. Mowat, Farley	The Snow Walker
2. Theroux, Paul	The Old Patagonian Express
   Enjoyable, although the author is a bit full of himself.
3. Vonnegut, Kurt	Galapagos (S)
4. Hesse, Herman	Siddhartha (S)
   Not as obscure or difficult as I thought it might be.
5. Munn, H. Warner	Merlin's Godson (S)
6. Dillard, Annie	Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974) 
   More exciting and understandable the second time around. I don't think I'll
ever regret squashing bugs again. 
7. Vonnegut, Kurt	Hocus Pocus (S)