Customer Reviews

Surprises around the Bend: 50 Adventurous Walkers

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this book very interesting since he picked 50 different people who all had one thing in common, walking. This book is refreshing and a page turner. It's also great to read and study in small groups. I really enjoyed how each chapter ended with a thought to ponder. This book will help you learned about the great creative people in our history and how they continued to keep walking.

I like my brother. He is a good, sober Lutheran Pastor without any of my personality defects. He has lived a stable life on the Tundra that is northern Minnesota. He represents some of the better aspects of my genetic stock. Smart, stable, conservative values, decent voice, plays the guitar well, creative.

A book arrived in the mail from said stable brother. Surprises Around the Bend: 50 adventurous walkers. Published by a Lutheran Publisher (Augsburg Press) and written by a Pastor, Richard Hasler. I read half of the thing last night. Essentially, it is an entreaty to get Lutherans off their butts and onto the hiking paths and sidewalks. Hasler encourages people to walk by providing short summaries of the lives of 50 famous folks who liked to walk. In order to live up to its Lutheran Publishing standards, there are "thoughts to ponder" and "prayers" at the of each vignette. Pastors like to do that, you know: ponder and pray.

Some of the "famous walkers": Carl Jung, Robert Frost, Charles Dickens, Thoreau (of course), Muir (of course), Dorothy Day, Emily Bronte, Abe Lincoln, Soren Kierkegaard (wouldn't be Lutheran without him) and many others. Martin Luther wasn't listed. Nor Ed Abbey. Other than Thoreau and Muir, modern Enviros weren't included. I guess we need not tell Lutherans about those walkers. That'd be dangerous.

Never the less, the book got me out the door this morning. A good thing.