Oprah has reinstituted her book club, called Oprah's Book Club 2.
0, online, interactive and all-digital for Kindle, Nook and iPad.
Her first pick is Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which hit #1 on the NY Times Hardcover Nonfiction list and #2 on the Combined Print and E-Book Nonfiction list.
It's the story of someone who comes undone by her mother's death.
Given the death sentence of a year by the doctor, her mother dies much sooner, and much too soon for Cheryl at age 22.
After this, siblings fall away, her stepfather becomes distant (and finds another family) and her marriage falls apart.
Strayed obliterates her grief with infidelities, eventually becoming involved with a man who does heroin, promising herself she'll never shoot it...
until she does.
Soon after, she decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, (or the PCT) at age 26.
This book is unflinchingly honest in the way it talks about burying yourself in something else or someone else to shut out grief and anger and the unfairness of it all.
Honest in the way she talks about loneliness, on the trail or watching vacationing people as she comes off the trail, hungry, dirty, smelly, her feet bruised and blistered in her too-small boots; and in the way memories of her abusive biological father surface, juxtaposed with the sweetness and love she received from her mother, who finally left that abusive marriage and found happiness with Cheryl's stepfather.
All the rage, all the men-it begins to make sense.
There are moments when she's funny.
There are the deep but fleeting ties, leading to heart-rending hugs of goodbye when a bond is formed with other PCTers, by virtue of how few courageous long-distance hikers there are.
(After all, not just anyone can understand the fear, the uncertainty, the rattlesnakes, foxes, bears.
) It's fun to anticipate with her the packages she sends to herself along the trail, how unprepared she is and the hilarious first time she puts her pack on and cannot stand up for the weight of all the things she's purchased "just in case.
" There are delays, mishaps with food and life-giving water, the alarming heat and shuddering cold.
The PCT is not for control freaks.
There is no control over the weather, the lingering ice and snow, the vagaries of the trail system and life itself.
This book surprised me with some seriously good prose, moments of alienation as well as human bonds I could relate to, and it cleared up some things I had assumed: No, stayed didn't go all the way through California; she skipped the Sierras because of huge snowfalls that winter and instead hiked through Oregon.
Her name is not pronounced "Stray - Ad" as I'd assumed; it's simply Strayed, like a dog strays...
or a wife strays, and it's not her real name.
When she got divorced there was a line on the form asking what her new name was, and that's what she came up with.
Strayed hiked the PCT in the mid-90s.
What would it be like today with GPS and internet coverage on your cell phone? She relied on phone booths, her charts and a compass.
Would I recommend this book? It's not technically "beach reading" that takes you away from real life, but it's a rich book that gives writers hope because Strayed accomplished a very long trek and a very good memoir.
0, online, interactive and all-digital for Kindle, Nook and iPad.
Her first pick is Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which hit #1 on the NY Times Hardcover Nonfiction list and #2 on the Combined Print and E-Book Nonfiction list.
It's the story of someone who comes undone by her mother's death.
Given the death sentence of a year by the doctor, her mother dies much sooner, and much too soon for Cheryl at age 22.
After this, siblings fall away, her stepfather becomes distant (and finds another family) and her marriage falls apart.
Strayed obliterates her grief with infidelities, eventually becoming involved with a man who does heroin, promising herself she'll never shoot it...
until she does.
Soon after, she decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, (or the PCT) at age 26.
This book is unflinchingly honest in the way it talks about burying yourself in something else or someone else to shut out grief and anger and the unfairness of it all.
Honest in the way she talks about loneliness, on the trail or watching vacationing people as she comes off the trail, hungry, dirty, smelly, her feet bruised and blistered in her too-small boots; and in the way memories of her abusive biological father surface, juxtaposed with the sweetness and love she received from her mother, who finally left that abusive marriage and found happiness with Cheryl's stepfather.
All the rage, all the men-it begins to make sense.
There are moments when she's funny.
There are the deep but fleeting ties, leading to heart-rending hugs of goodbye when a bond is formed with other PCTers, by virtue of how few courageous long-distance hikers there are.
(After all, not just anyone can understand the fear, the uncertainty, the rattlesnakes, foxes, bears.
) It's fun to anticipate with her the packages she sends to herself along the trail, how unprepared she is and the hilarious first time she puts her pack on and cannot stand up for the weight of all the things she's purchased "just in case.
" There are delays, mishaps with food and life-giving water, the alarming heat and shuddering cold.
The PCT is not for control freaks.
There is no control over the weather, the lingering ice and snow, the vagaries of the trail system and life itself.
This book surprised me with some seriously good prose, moments of alienation as well as human bonds I could relate to, and it cleared up some things I had assumed: No, stayed didn't go all the way through California; she skipped the Sierras because of huge snowfalls that winter and instead hiked through Oregon.
Her name is not pronounced "Stray - Ad" as I'd assumed; it's simply Strayed, like a dog strays...
or a wife strays, and it's not her real name.
When she got divorced there was a line on the form asking what her new name was, and that's what she came up with.
Strayed hiked the PCT in the mid-90s.
What would it be like today with GPS and internet coverage on your cell phone? She relied on phone booths, her charts and a compass.
Would I recommend this book? It's not technically "beach reading" that takes you away from real life, but it's a rich book that gives writers hope because Strayed accomplished a very long trek and a very good memoir.
SHARE
