Whereas retirement from a successful career is often synonymous with a blowout party and the purchase of a sports car, former New York Times
reporter Wren, who served as bureau chief in Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, Ottawa and Johannesburg, chose to defy the status quo and celebrate his own retirement by hiking nearly 400 miles in five weeks from Manhattan to Fairlee, Vt. Though this is a solo rite-of-passage, Wren, who became known on the trails as "Super Tortoise" for his slow but steadfast pace, encounters and befriends fellow hikers from around the world. Along the way, they swap camping stories and compare equipment, and as Wren's course meanders through fields and mountains, torrential downpours and tranquil sunsets, he learns to find comfort in the muddy, wet and open terrain. Wren departs from New York armed with the basics, including a copy of Thoreau's Walden
, and slowly leaves the city's frazzled pace behind. Accompanied sporadically by old friends out for a day hike, Wren sheds his would-be retiree facade to become a hardened and resolute mountain man. With each state, he encounters refreshing vistas, new faces and mishaps, whether a twisted ankle or a risky tick-bite. Though navigating the snaking paths along the Appalachian Trail doesn't quite compare with interviewing an opium drug lord in Southeast Asia or going on an unplanned cocaine bust in Colombia, Wren fills this report with humor and historical references, tying escapades of his past with adventures from his current voyage. (Mar.)
