From what I have heard here, Strayed's book seems to be popular because almost all its readers have no connection to or interest in backpacking; for them it is just a peculiar personal story and they accept it entirely on the terms laid down by the author.

there are just a whole lot of books out there already that boil down to "the story of my thru-hike"

I have read a great many of these books, maybe five by now. But after the last one I knew I'd reached the point of drastically diminished returns, where, no matter how high my interest in the subject runs, they all began to sound exactly the same.

Ironically, I wrote a "I went for a hike" book of my own back in 2005. I like to think it has little in common with these other books. For my model, I used Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Jerome K. Jerome.

Those who've read Jerome's book will understand this confession. Those who haven't can probably pick up a free electronic version somewhere, since it has been continuously in print since about 1890 and is no longer under copyright.

Those who are brave enough to want to read my book, well, I can probably manage to get them a PDF of it somehow or other.