Wild
A Journey from Lost to Found
by Cheryl Strayed
5 more
More Recommenders
Actor and activist
“@CherylStrayed @KyleLeRoy @nytimesbooks Wild is a great book and a great film | Its been less than 3 weeks and I have devoured Torch, Tiny Beautiful Things and Wild. Thank you @RWitherspoon @CherylStrayed x | One of my favorites. | Some excellent Adventure book recommendations if you're looking for gift ideas.”
Source →“@CherylStrayed @KyleLeRoy @nytimesbooks Wild is a great book and a great film | Its been less than 3 weeks and I have devoured Torch, Tiny Beautiful Things and Wild. Thank you @RWitherspoon @CherylStrayed x | One of my favorites. | Some excellent Adventure book recommendations if you're looking for gift ideas.”
Source →“@CherylStrayed @KyleLeRoy @nytimesbooks Wild is a great book and a great film | Its been less than 3 weeks and I have devoured Torch, Tiny Beautiful Things and Wild. Thank you @RWitherspoon @CherylStrayed x | One of my favorites. | Some excellent Adventure book recommendations if you're looking for gift ideas.”
Source →“@CherylStrayed @KyleLeRoy @nytimesbooks Wild is a great book and a great film | Its been less than 3 weeks and I have devoured Torch, Tiny Beautiful Things and Wild. Thank you @RWitherspoon @CherylStrayed x | One of my favorites. | Some excellent Adventure book recommendations if you're looking for gift ideas.”
Source →“@CherylStrayed @KyleLeRoy @nytimesbooks Wild is a great book and a great film | Its been less than 3 weeks and I have devoured Torch, Tiny Beautiful Things and Wild. Thank you @RWitherspoon @CherylStrayed x | One of my favorites. | Some excellent Adventure book recommendations if you're looking for gift ideas.”
Source →Recommended by 7 notable people, including Tim Ferriss and Oprah Winfrey
Check price on AmazonProof-backed recommendation
Amazon availability
Reading Profile
Should I read this?
Wild is an intimate, voice-driven memoir that mixes detailed trail scenes with extended personal memory and reckoning. Its useful part is the candid, often lyrical account of walking 1,100 miles while working through recent bereavement and life rupture; those emotional passages hit hardest when paired with concrete moments on the trail. Main limitation: the narrative frequently detours into interior monologue and repetition, so readers wanting strict chronology, practical hiking info, or brisk pacing may find stretches slow or indulgent.
Read this if...
- •a mid-level office worker rethinking priorities after a breakup or loss, wanting narrative permission to imagine a radical life reset and to feel less alone in the messy middle of change
- •a weekend hiker planning a future long-distance trail who wants vivid, on-the-ground scenes and emotional realism rather than step-by-step logistics
- •an MFA student or memoir-writer studying voice and scene—useful as an example of first-person intensity, sensory detail, and how memory interrupts travel narrative
Skip this if...
- •you’ll likely put it down when long stretches shift from forward motion to inward flashbacks and repeated reflection—if you need steady plot momentum, the middle can feel slow
- •annoying if you prefer practical information: this is not a trail guide and contains no hands-on hiking instruction or checklists
- •lose interest if you dislike confessional tone or sentimentality: the emotional candor is constant and sometimes lapses into repetition
At twentysix, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's rapid death from cancer, her family drifted apart and her marriage crumbled. With nothing left to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to walk elevenhundred miles of the west coast of America and to do it alone. She had no experience of lo...
Before You Buy
Reading Specifications
Difficulty:hard
Audience Fit
- a mid-level office worker rethinking priorities after a breakup or loss, wanting narrative permission to imagine a radical life reset and to feel less alone in the messy middle of change
- a weekend hiker planning a future long-distance trail who wants vivid, on-the-ground scenes and emotional realism rather than step-by-step logistics
- an MFA student or memoir-writer studying voice and scene—useful as an example of first-person intensity, sensory detail, and how memory interrupts travel narrative
- you’ll likely put it down when long stretches shift from forward motion to inward flashbacks and repeated reflection—if you need steady plot momentum, the middle can feel slow
- annoying if you prefer practical information: this is not a trail guide and contains no hands-on hiking instruction or checklists
- lose interest if you dislike confessional tone or sentimentality: the emotional candor is constant and sometimes lapses into repetition
Check formats, pricing, and availability options for Kindle, physical print, or audiobooks directly.
View available editions on AmazonKey themes
Why recommended
Recommended by 12 sources and appears in Hiking, Walking, and Nature.
Recommended by notable people
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
Recommendation Signals
Recommendation proof is sourced from public posts, interviews, reading lists, and cited references.
Tim Ferriss
Author and podcaster
“@CherylStrayed @KyleLeRoy @nytimesbooks Wild is a great book and a great film | Its been less than 3 weeks and I have devoured Torch, Tiny Beautiful Things and Wild. Thank you @RWitherspoon @CherylStrayed x | One of my favorites. | Some excellent Adventure book recommendations if you're looking for gift ideas.”
View sources (4) ▾80%
Appears In
Not sure if this is the right fit?
Consider The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. Recommended by 60 sources.
“A blunt, conversational tour through the worst parts of building a company. Horowitz shares personal stories from his own startup failures and recoveries, offering practical wisdom on layoffs, pivots, CEO loneliness, and managing when times are bad. The value is in the honest, experience-based insight you won't get from business school. The limitation is its narrow focus on venture-backed tech startups—if you're not in that world, some advice may feel irrelevant. Reads like a wise mentor telling you what nobody else will.”
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Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.