"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Friday, April 5, 2019

Review and quotes: The Walk

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City ReaderShare the opening quote from the book.
Th
e Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's VoiceFind a quote from page 56.

Review, of sorts, to follow.

This is the book I'm highlighting right now---


Title: The Walk by Richard Paul Evans

Book Beginnings:
Prologue: My name is Alan Christoffersen. You don't know me. 'Just another book in the library.' my father would say. 'Unopened and unread.' You have no idea how far I've come or what I've lost. More important, you have no idea what I've found.
Friday 56:
As a boy I heard this story in church. A man was patching a pitched roof of a tall building when he began sliding off. As he neared the edge of the roof he prayed, 'Save me, Lord, and I'll go to church every Sunday, I'll give up drinking, I'll best man this city has ever known.' As he finished his prayer, a nail snagged his overalls and saved him. The man looked up to the sky and shouted, 'Never mind, God, I took care of it myself.' How true of us.---Alan Christoffersen's diary
Summary: Everything in Alan Christoffersen's life is gone---his wife, his job, his friends, his money, his home. After a suicide attempt is thwarted, he decides to walk across the country, the furtherest point he can get from where he lives in Washington State. That point in Key West, Florida. He starts out on his walk with very little planning. He just wants to get away from where he is and all the painful memories he wants to leave behind. Among the few things he does take a long with him is a blank journal. He hopes to record his thoughts and feelings as he crosses the country. The quote from page 56 is an example of a journal entry. This book is about his walk, who he meets, and what he learns along the way.

Review: At first I thought the book was a little light-weight, a kind of dressed up romance novel. You know, man meets girl, man gets girl, man loses girl, man finds self type of book. It reads fast and is a book club selection, so I had no doubt I would finish it, but that didn't mean I was going to enjoy it. That is until about page 200 when it suddenly became clear to me that there were "angels" located along the route ready to offer assistance and thoughtful words of encouragement. Suddenly I was interested to see how far Alan would get on his trip and what he would learn along the way. What he did learn wasn't what I expected and it was profound and life-changing.

I'm actually pretty excited to discuss the book in my club and to share some of my inspirations from it. I'm also really glad that this book came along when it did, as our club has been reading pretty heavy stuff lately, the kind of books that drag you down, not lift you up. The Walk is just the opposite of that and I am sure that our club will appreciate that.

After visiting Richard Paul Evans' webpage, I learned that The Walk is the first book in a series of five books about the physical and spiritual journal of Alan Christoffersen. I'm pretty happy to learn that this book is part of a series because Alan never even makes it out of Washington State by the end of this book. Richard Paul Evans was extremely popular in my library with teens because of his Michael Vey series. The first book I read by him, and it may be his most popular, is called The Christmas Box.

I listened to the audio version of The Walk expertly read by the author. I was shocked to learn that the narrator wasn't the actor John Cusack. They sound a lot alike. Ha!

Evans, Richard Paul. The Walk. Simon and Schuster Audio, 2010. Audible Audiobook available from my library.





SOTH Book Club May 2019

17 comments:

  1. Sounds interesting. I hope you are enjoying it. This week I am spotlighting Come and Get Me by August Norman. Happy reading!

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  2. This books looks interesting. Enjoy your current read!

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  3. I have read all the books in The Walk series and loved them all equally. One day I hope to drive (not walk) around and see the sights mentioned in the Missouri/Arkansas/Tennessee parts of the journey. I have them all mapped and plotted out. Just can't DO it right now. Some day!!

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    1. I thought I'd do the same thing for the Washington portion. The first part of his trip was so focused on where he stopped to eat, I wondered if they were real spots.

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  4. I've not heard of this series. It sounds good. And that excerpt. Wouldn't you know it he would back pedal.

    My Friday 56 for Sit... Stay... Beg

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  5. I'm quite interested in more! Happy weekend!

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  6. I liked the quotes from it and it's a fascinating premise. (a bit like a British book that I can't remember the title of right now)

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    1. The character said he was inspired to take the walk from the book Walk Across America, which I think is nonfiction.

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  7. Not sure this one is for me, but I am so glad you ended up enjoying it so much. I am impressed that you stuck with it all the way to 200 pages, but I guess that's what we do when we're reading book club books!

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    1. It's not really my type of book either but I did enjoy it eventually and it was a very fast read. It may be over 200 pages, but the size of the book is small and plenty of white space on each page.

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  8. Ha-ha, love that one! Thanks for sharing, and for visiting my blog.

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  9. Those are great snippets. I want to check this book out now. Thanks for sharing! Hope you have a great weekend! :)

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    1. I thought the Friday 56 was especially appropro since we as human do that so often. "God help me. Nevermind."

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  10. This sounds good. I've been wanting to read this one.

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  11. The opening certainly made me wonder about the character.

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  12. Glad to hear this one came when it did. Lots of heavy books in a row can definitely way you down.

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  13. This is one of my best friend's favorite books. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

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