Arts & Entertainment - Lubbock Hike through Appalachian Trail
leads to book  Published: Monday, July 20, 1998    SRC=""
border=0 align=center>       Monday, July 20, 1998 Last modified
at 1:21 a.m. on Monday, July 20, 1998  Hike through Appalachian
Trail leads to book  PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Twenty years in
England left Iowa-born Bill Bryson with a soft British accent, a
whimsical view of the world and a desire to rediscover his
native country.  To fulfill that urge, Bryson hooked up with an
old high school buddy and set out on the Appalachian Trail, the
nation's best-known footpath, covering roughly 2,150 miles
through 14 states from Georgia to Maine.  Bryson, 47, and his
hiking companion, a larger-than-life character named Stephen
Katz who plays Sancho Panza to the author's Don Quixote, never
quite go the distance. But they put in enough time and mileage
to capture the flavor of the trail and provide fodder for "A
Walk in the Woods," a book that could make Bryson as well-known
in the United States as he is