CRACKERSPORT, PENNSYLVANIA – One of the chief pleasures of backpacking is being wrapped up in a good book and a warm sleeping bag at the same time–but miles on the hoof often make for quick reads! But local backpacker Keira Wormald found one worth losing sleep over on her weekend jaunt.
After a long day on the trail on Saturday, she took to her tent promptly when full dark fell at 7:42 PM. Ms. Wormald opened Laith Whitaker’s The Frisible Essence of a Soul in Transit to Pisco Elqui expecting a quick and gentle lulling to her hard-earned nightly repose. Instead, she was enraptured by its lush prose and spellbound by her instant kinship with the fragile seeming but tough spirited Fenella Tyler, and just kept on reading.
Despite the weariness deep in her bones, Ms. Wormald was stuck turning page after page. “I’m usually out in nothing flat… sometimes it’s tough to even finish a sentence, much less a paragraph. When it’s dark out and I’ve been packing all day, I’m gone to the world. But this book… wow! I couldn’t stop! I just had to see what was happening next!”
Ms. Wormald reports that she definitely felt her delayed bedtime of 7:54 PM, but she’d do it again in a heartbeat.
The Hiking Times 