#BernadetteDunne – Rosepoint Publishing

Wild by Cheryl Strayed #AudiobookReview #bookclub #TBT

Best Books of the Year 2012

Award Winner for Readers’ Favorite Memoir & Autobiography (2012)

The selection for the first book of the year, read in December (no meeting in December) for the Y Book Club was Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. This was a departure from some of the literary fiction we’ve read, certainly more profane.

My Thoughts

Guess I’m going to be attracted to novels about extraordinary hiking trails, particularly the affectionately known as the AT, or Appalachian Trail, which runs almost 2,200 miles through fourteen states. No, this memoir recalls the experience of the author on an eleven-hundred-mile hike of the Pacific Crest Trail—newer, longer (at 2,650 miles)—and runs from Mexico to Canada over the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges.

By herself.

Cheryl was twenty-two when she found herself at the end of a marriage and having recently lost her mother. She was lost. A serendipitous discovery of a book regarding the PCT, however, fired her imagination and with little more than a burning desire to experience the trail and “find herself,” set a course.

She did do some planning, from packing and arranging boxes of necessities (including a twenty-dollar bill in each box) to be delivered to designated post offices along the route by a kind soul who agreed to mail them. Unfortunately, she didn’t train for the hike and left with gear she hadn’t actually tried, boots still to be broken in, and a backpack which proved to be almost intolerably heavy to heft.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed - UK cover — Wild – UK cover

I’m of an older generation that does not need unnecessary profane language to engage; however, this is liberally peppered with it, not to say the least of it. She reflects heavily on her life, her relationships (particularly with her mother) throughout most of the book almost to the point of skipping over the land she is trudging through with little thought other than how much her feet hurt.

Actually, if the experience is to be taken as read, she confronts relatively little wildlife, which particularly in bear, deer, and elk country I’d have expected more. She did note one bear and handled the encounter remarkably well, also witnessing a large herd of elk at one point. Lots of snakes in the deserts, particularly rattlesnakes and, again, must have been dumb luck not to have been bitten.

I loved the hiking community as described, and found most she encountered, usually men, to be friendly and supportive with only one or two incidents of a severely vulnerable situation. Fun that each hiker is given a “trail name” and there is a “trail angel” community that provides some hospitality and support. So there is some info I could enjoy. Some hikers even starting solo, meet someone along the way with whom they can compatibly pair off at a comparable hike rate.

Cheryl steadfastly determined to remain solo. There were periods of time, however, when she had to get off the trail to claim a box waiting for her at the post office or experience a little wayside town. It was during those times she hitched a ride that I thought at most risk (from other people rather than animals).

Still, there were a number of shocking revelations, one in particular that had me gagging and putting the book down for a while. She was not a person I could identify with or in whom I could engage—her character alien to me and not sympathetic. I was shocked by some of her stupid decisions and inexcusable actions.

I was surprised to learn that Reese Witherspoon starred in the making of this movie. Not too surprised to hear it was better than the book. I appreciated my library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook though and these thoughts are my own, including the interpretation of the Book Club thoughts below.

Book Club Thoughts

The publisher provides pointed questions for discussion at the book club, ably kept on topic by the facilitator. Because of the severely inclement weather the morning of the meeting, we had a very small group but most were as stunned as I was by the admission of so many of societal no-nos.

We all found the narrative to be openly honest and a few thought it was not unusual in her circumstances to be that hung up on the death of her mother or who her mother actually was to her. Few had heard of the trail and fewer still with the idea of backpacking, hiking, or even camping, much less solo. Consensus thought her idea too spontaneous, lack of experience, or preparation to make sense, and a stupid idea. It was widely agreed that more than a few salient points might have been edited out, if they’d existed at all.

Items specifically examined were:

►Discussion on why she decided to change her name and how she managed to land on Strayed—it’s definition being a person lost, moved “aimlessly from a group or the right course or place.”

►Possibly writing the book was more of a catharsis for the author than the actual hike.

►The “totems”—among which was a bracelet with the name of a Vietnam casualty, and a feather, the sole totem not lost or destroyed on the hike.

Book Details:

Publisher: Random House Audio

Narrator: Bernadette Dunne

Publication Date: March 20, 2012

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide and was made into an Oscar-nominated major motion picture. Her book Tiny Beautiful Things is currently being adapted for a Hulu television show that will be released in early 2023. In 2016, Tiny Beautiful Things was adapted as a play that has been staged in theaters around the world. Strayed is also the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel, Torch, and the collection Brave Enough, which brings together more than one hundred of her inspiring quotes. Her award-winning essays and short stories have been published in The Best American Essays, the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, Salon, and elsewhere. She has hosted two hit podcasts, Sugar Calling and Dear Sugars. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

The YMCA Book Club

Audition: A Memoir by Barbara Walters #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

Young people starting out in television sometimes say to me:
“I want to be you.” My stock reply is always: “Then you have to take the whole package.”

Book Blurb:

And now, at last, the most important woman in the history of television journalism gives us that “whole package,” in her inspiring and riveting memoir. After more than forty years of interviewing heads of state, world leaders, movie stars, criminals, murderers, inspirational figures, and celebrities of all kinds, Barbara Walters has turned her gift for examination onto herself to reveal the forces that shaped her extraordinary life.

Barbara Walters’s perception of the world was formed at a very early age. Her father, Lou Walters, was the owner and creative mind behind the legendary Latin Quarter nightclub, and it was his risk-taking lifestyle that made Barbara aware of the ups and downs that can occur when someone is willing to take great risks.

The financial responsibility for her family, the fear, the love all played a large part in the choices she made as she grew up: the friendships she developed, the relationships she had, the marriages she tried to make work. Ultimately, thanks to her drive, combined with a decent amount of luck, she began a career in television. And what a career it has been! Against great odds, Barbara has made it to the top of a male-dominated industry.

She has spent a lifetime auditioning, and this book, in some ways, is her final audition, as she fully opens up both her private and public lives. In doing so, she has given us a story that is heartbreaking and honest, surprising and fun, sometimes startling, and always fascinating.

My Review:

It’s always fun to get the down low on our celebrities. I always wonder how they got their start. Born with a silver spoon or gagging on mush for the twentieth day? In this case, she appears to have experienced a bit of both.

First, I marveled that as a girl of her generation, she was given the opportunity for college when most women were not expected to have more than a high school education if that. That generation would not waste an education on someone whose role was expected to be a wife and mother.

There certainly was a drive in her, however, in that her father worked heavily in the entertainment business. Lou Walters, who managed during tough financial times in the US, created the sensational Latin Quarter Nightclub in New York. Originally from London, his nightclub was a sensational hit. And then it wasn’t. Feast or famine. And insecurity.

But, yes, as with any who finally makes it to the top, there was a combination of luck, timing, and hard, hard work—willing to take on anything. And back then, a woman in that industry was expected to do little more than fetch coffee.

In her sixty-five years in the industry, as a journalist, she interviewed anyone and everyone. The famous and infamous. Newsworthy. News reporter, co-anchor, and anchor. Television personality, appearing and/or creating topical talk shows. I must admit that I didn’t watch The View, but did enjoy 20/20 and her interviews.

At almost twenty-seven hours of an audiobook, translating to more than 628 Kindle or print pages, you can imagine she didn’t leave anyone out of her book. Less you believe I didn’t pound through all that, I’ll admit there were more than a few dry areas, then jerking back into someone of interest. Enough that there would be someone of interest to a wide range audience.

Her love life, affairs, and marriages? Gees, Barbara, TMI.

Still, there were a number of quotables and I found it fascinating that she vacillated so much over decisions. Indeed, one of my favorites:

“On my gravestone I want inscribed maybe, on the other hand, I should have lived.”

Obviously, something may have made the decision for her. She passed away in 2022.

She may possibly have reduced this book by half if she had not expanded on the story of most everyone she cited. Granted, they were all notable, maybe some more than others. Somehow, though, this reader hung in there for every new celebrity by speeding up the audiobook pace or I’d still be listening to it.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Biographies of Journalists, Editors & Publishers, Journalist Biographies, Biographies of Women
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B001M5G75Y
Listening Length: 26 hrs 46 mins
Narrator: Bernadette Dunne
Publication Date: November 24, 2008
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK

Barbara Walters - author - photo by Lynn Gilbert — Barbara Walters, photo by Lynn Gilbert, courtesy Wikipedia

The Author: Barbara Walters of American television reported news from 1961 for the National Broadcasting Company, and afterward in 1976 joined as the first woman to anchor the nightly network to 1979.

Barbara Jill Walters wrote as a journalist and media personality as a regular fixture on morning shows like The View. People knew Walters for more than a decade in the morning on Today, where she with Hugh Downs later hosted Frank McGee and Jim Hartz. Walters later spent a quarter-century as co-host of 20/20, an evening magazine. She stood with Harry Reasoner on The American Broadcasting Company Evening News. [Wikipedia]

[Wikipedia has an extensive bio on Ms Walters from personal to professional life, well worth checking out. She accomplished more in her ninety-three years than most can imagine and is truly inspirational in breaking records and opening doors for women.]

©V Williams

#ThrowbackThursday