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Interviews | November 3, 2009

Sheila A.: IMG On Storytelling: The Powells.com Interview with Donald Miller



donaldmillerDonald Miller is a Christian writer, but the question that Miller asks with his latest memoir, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, is applicable to... Continue »
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25 Remote Warehouse Travel Writing- General

Dead Men Hike No Trails

by Rick Mckinney

Dead Men Hike No Trails Cover

ISBN13: 9781591138709
ISBN10: 1591138701
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

"Following a friend's suicide in 2003, I faced my own suicidal depression and a choice. Dwell in grief or run gonzo crazy and free in the opposite direction, blazing bright and deep in the jungles of America, hiking and writing until my feet and fingers bled with a pure, honest, screeching love for life." Lending levity to tragedy, author Rick McKinney loads readers into his backpack for a 2000-mile Appalachian Trail odyssey, dealing a passionate, endorphin-fueled gonzo blow to suicidal thinking. Dead Men is a deeply empathic, unorthodox prescription for a nation depressed. It delivers an endorphin charged blow to a Prozac-dependent world.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
Little Haxby, December 16, 2008 (view all comments by Little Haxby)
I read Mr. McKinney’s book because I wanted to hike the rail. It was recommended as the most honest account of the experience. Because I have so far found truth in that (I attempt a Northbound this March, 2009, keep y’all posted), I’m obliged to pass it on. There was a moment, an early passage, in the snows of Georgia or North Carolina’s waning winter, when I got hooked. He wrote about a day of snow on the trail, cold body, and wet everything. Then he mentioned the greatness of the day. Mr. McKinney’s writing is conversational, genuine, and visual, which eases the reader along that narrow corridor, baiting the imagination with endorphin-rich panoramas and enlivening determination. This storybook is part conversation, part diary, all exploration. It is a joy to read (and beware: reading aloud is even better!)

Mr. McKinney gives a fullness to the people he meets, describing them so generously you can’t help but figure that when you hike it (it might take a certain type of crazy to argue this, but if one could finish the book and not start planning “when,” I’d be shocked) you’ll be sure to meet a host of characters deserving of their own chronicle. But that tangent brings up a curiosity about me as reader versus the vicarious reader, who will never attempt the Trail. Who will enjoy Mr. McKinney’s journey more? His honest musings, the raw tenacity unhindered by the downside of struggle, which he writes with visceral fluency, helped set my mind. How universal that phenomenon, I’m not sure.

I recommend this read because Mr. McKinney brings you along, quite amiably, from the not-so-comfortable-anymore confines of home, on his personal adventure, and that is a gift.
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stricklandia, November 20, 2008 (view all comments by stricklandia)
"Fear and Loathing on the Appalachian Trail." Read Bill Bryson if you want a safe armchair read about a stroll through the woods. Read Rick McKinney if you want to get yanked out of that armchair and dragged along for a 2,000-mile literary adventure full of love, laughter, hilarity, sadness and, most of all, honesty. I'm impatiently waiting for McKinney to write the next book.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781591138709
Author:
Mckinney, Rick
Publisher:
Booklocker.com
Author:
McKinney, Rick
Subject:
Hiking
Subject:
Essays & Travelogues
Subject:
Motivational & Inspirational
Publication Date:
December 2005
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
388
Dimensions:
9.00x6.00x.86 in. 1.25 lbs.

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