Nonfiction Book Discussion

A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko

We read a variety of contemporary nonfiction and meet monthly for discussion in person and virtually via Zoom. September's selection: A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko (new title)

For more information, contact discussion facilitator Kiri Palm at kpalm@aurorapubliclibrary.org. Copies of the book are available for checkout at the West Branch circulation desk.

Join us virtually here.

Please note that there has been a title change for the September book discussion from the previously selected title The Undocumented Americans.  The new title for September is A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko.

Book description:

A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarko

Two friends, zero preparation, one dream. A few years after quitting his job to pursue an ill-advised dream of becoming a whitewater guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon—a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had actually completed the crossing billed it as “the toughest hike in the world.”

The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was deeper, richer, and far more complex than anything the two men had imagined—and came within a hair’s breadth of killing them both. They struggled to make their way through the all-but impenetrable reaches of the canyon’s truest wilderness, a vertical labyrinth of thousand-foot cliffs and crumbling ledges where water is measured out by the teaspoon and every step is fraught with peril—and where, even today, there is still no trail spanning the length of the country’s best-known and most iconic landmark.

Along the way, veteran long-distance hikers ushered them into secret pockets of enchantment, invisible to the millions of tourists gathered on the rim, that only a handful of humans have ever seen. Members of the canyon’s eleven Native American tribes brought them face-to-face with layers of history that forced them to reconsider myths at the very center of our national parks—and exposed them to the threats of commercial tourism. Even Fedarko’s dying father, who had first pointed him toward the chasm more than forty years earlier but had never set foot there himself, opened him to a new way of seeing the landscape. (publisher description)

I acknowledge my participation (or my child’s participation) in this virtual program includes the recording of this program which may include my name as listed on my account, images and/or video footage. I grant the Aurora Public Library District my permission to use the photographs and/or video footage for any legal use, including but not limited to: publicity, copyright purposes, illustration, advertising, and web content.   
 
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