Wild and wonderful

Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found

Wild is a massive bestseller in the US, where it is currently being filmed starring Reese Witherspoon (who bought the rights), with a script by Nick Hornby. It is a riveting read, an unusual true-life story told with skill and good humour.

In 1995 Cheryl Strayed was a troubled 26-year-old, flirting with heroin and addicted to casual sex, when she decided to hike 1,100 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail. She was recently divorced, and still struggling to recover from her mother’s sudden death, and the subsequent disintegration of her family. She was, as a stranger observed, an actual stray. Her unusual surname is no accident. Given the chance to choose a new surname after her divorce, when she was badly adrift in her life, she chose to be Cheryl Strayed.