Tag: nonfiction

An interview with Amanda K. Jaros, author of In My Boots: A Memoir of Five Million Steps Along the Appalachian Trail

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My guest today on What Cathy Read Next is Amanda K. Jaros whose memoir, In My Boots, is published today by Black Rose Writing. In My Boots is available to purchase as an ebook or paperback from Amazon and other online retailers. Read on as I chat with Amanda about the book and the incredible journey it describes. I’m grateful to Amanda for sharing some photographs taken during her trek that you won’t find in the book.

About the Book

Front cover of In My Boots by Amanda K Jaros

When Amanda K. Jaros learns about the 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail after college, she walks away from a sheltered life dominated by an angry and volatile father and does something spends six months backpacking. Alone. She expects to pass the time in the solitary and peaceful wilderness, reflecting on her life’s direction. Instead, she finds herself part of a community ripe with stinky socks, buckets of ice cream, and trail magic. What matters on the trail is not a hiker’s past or parents, her fears or failures, but rather, what matters is the connections we make with each other.

In My Boots recounts a challenging physical journey following the trail over the windy balds of the South, through snowstorms in the Smoky Mountain National Park, and above the tree line to the alpine zones of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The journey is also emotionally transformative as this twenty-three-year-old leaves behind the compliant and scared girl she once was. With each step away from her damaged childhood, each new friend, each stop in another rural trail town, she comes to understand that to succeed on the trail, and in life, it turns out, the path she walks must be her own.

Find In My Boots on Goodreads

Q & A with Amanda K. Jaros, author of In My Boots

What prompted you to embark on this challenge and why the Appalachian Trail?

When I was just out of college, I got a summer job as a naturalist intern working at Baxter State Park in Maine. There I learned about the Appalachian Trail when I met hikers arriving in the late summer to summit Katahdin, the northern terminus of the AT, within Baxter Park. I’d had a pretty sheltered childhood that was dominated by an angry and volatile father, and I lacked both confidence and direction after graduating college. I knew a 2,160-mile trek from Georgia to Maine would be difficult, but I also knew it was time for me to step out of my shell. The more I learned, the more I felt called to walk the trail.

How did you prepare for the journey?

I knew nothing about backpacking when I decided to hike the trail. I started planning in October for a March start in Georgia. This was back in 1998, when the Internet was just emerging, so I began with books; Jean Deeds’s There are Mountains to Climb was my first inspiration. I then visited a fledgling website called Trailplace, where hikers gathered to talk about the AT. Folks on that site, as well as at the local Eastern Mountain Sports store where I got a part-time job, were instrumental in teaching me outdoors basics. I also invested in a full set of trail maps from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and a mileage data book so I could plan town stops and mail drops along the route. It was a lot to figure out, but luckily, I love research.

What were the most challenging things you encountered?

Walking up and down the mountains, day after day, in all kinds of weather, for several months, is a huge physical challenge, and there are a heck of a lot of uphill climbs. But eventually, your body adjusts and you get stronger. For me, the mental challenge was even harder. I knew I wanted to be hiking, but it takes a lot of resolve to get up every day and actually do it. There were many, many times I wanted to quit and go home, but the friends I met along the way, the beauty of the natural world I was walking in, and my goal to be a 2000-miler kept me going.

What made you decide to write a book about your experiences?

I thought about writing a book for many years, but life, family, and work responsibilities took precedence for a long time. It wasn’t until I was older and realized what the story was actually about that I decided to write the book. While a long-distance hike is an amazing thing, a memoir needs to tell a deeper story. The story of my hike was based on my childhood foundation with a verbally abusive father, a childhood that stunted me and precluded confidence and self-worth. Setting out on the Appalachian Trail, and succeeding in that endeavour, gave me strength and power I didn’t know I had. At the time, I’m not sure I could have written that story. I needed to grow up more and understand the greater impact the AT had on me before I could really explore it in writing.

What advice would you give to someone thinking about taking on a similar challenge?

Whether you are wanting to hike a long-distance trail or write a book, I would suggest taking some time to look at why you want to do such an activity. Both are big and amazing undertakings, and you’ll need perseverance to do either of them. After you know the why, do your research. Get to know other hikers or writers. Read books and articles. Get outside for some shake-down hikes or start a daily writing practice. Follow your heart, but be prepared.

What message would you like readers to take away from the book?

I hope that readers enjoy the story of a long hike and the magic of the people I met and the experiences I had along the way. But I also hope that the book inspires folks to reach for their own goals, to work to overcome whatever bad circumstances they may be facing and find ways to empower themselves. Not everyone wants to or is able to do something as enormous as hiking the Appalachian Trail, but everyone deserves to follow the path to their dreams and find success and self-love along the way. My wish is that readers close the back cover of the book, smile, and maybe feel a little more hopeful.

About the Author

Author Amanda K Jaros

Amanda K. Jaros is the editor of Labor of Love: A Literary Mama Staff Anthology and author of 100 Things to Do in Ithaca Before You Die. Her essays on nature and family have appeared in Flyway, Appalachia, Terrain.org, Stone Canoe, and elsewhere. When not writing, she can be found on a trail somewhere, and has hiked the Inca Trail in Peru, several trails in Australia, and is currently working toward completing hikes of the 46 High Peaks in the Adirondacks. She lives in Ithaca, New York, with her husband and son, where she recently took up kayaking and serves her community as a county legislator.

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Book Review – A Year in a Small Garden by Frances Tophill #ReadNonFicChal

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About the Book

Front cover of A Year in a Small Garden by Frances Tophill featuring the authot standing in a lid garden

A Year in a Small Garden follows Frances Tophill as she creates her new garden in a terraced house in Devon. Working in a small space, the book documents her journey to bring life to her garden, including tips and tricks for you to achieve similar results in whatever spaces you have at home.

The book is structured around the stages of building her small garden, and branches out to include small community gardens Frances works with, as well as projects to create in small spaces at home – with a focus on growing food and planting in a sustainable, environmentally friendly way.

Featuring new photography shot throughout the year, as well as Frances’s own journal and garden notebooks, this book will not only give you an insight into Frances’s journey creating her first garden – but will help you create a beautiful, productive, garden at home.

Format: Hardcover (256 pages) Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Publication date: 25th April 2024 Genre: Nonfiction

Find A Year in a Small Garden on Goodreads

Purchase A Year in a Small Garden from Bookshop.org [Disclosure: If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops]

My Review

Gardening is my other passion aside from reading and Frances Tophill is one of my favourite presenters on BBC’s Gardeners’ World programme. The book was a birthday present from my husband.

Subtitled ‘Creating a Beautiful Garden in Any Space’, A Year in a Small Garden displays Frances’ personal approach to gardening. If you like your garden to have straight lines, a manicured lawn (or, God forbid, artificial grass), flowers grown for their appearance rather than their usefulness and no sign of anything edible, then this is not the book for you. Unless, of course, you are open to persuasion that there’s a different and more sustainable way to garden. Luckily, I’m very much in tune with Frances’ approach to gardening: naturalistic, using native species where possible, growing a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, peat and pesticide free, and creating habitats to encourage wildlife.

I loved Frances’ delight at acquiring a garden of her own at last and her excitement about planning how to design it and what to grow. Her garden is relatively small and therefore her decisions about what to place where, whether that’s garden structures, seating areas or plants, will be relatable to a lot of people. It is also particularly useful for those inheriting an already established garden as many of Frances’ early decisions involve whether or not to remove existing trees and shrubs, as well as how to cope with the garden’s challenging east-facing aspect. She freely admits that she ignored the usual advice of simply observing the garden for a year before making too many changes. I’d be the same in her place!

The book contains lots of practical advice, such as choosing the right tree for your garden (with the emphasis on native species), tips for successfully propagating plants and, of particular interest for me since it’s a project I’m embarking on this year, building a wildlife pond. There are beautiful photographs and I really liked the inclusion of excerpts from Frances’ journal. I also enjoyed reading about some of the gardens she visited for inspiration, including community gardening projects.

Frances’ mantra is to use recycled materials wherever possible. Hence her wonderfully eccentric greenhouse constructed out of old window and door frames. She prioritises growing things that have either a medicinal or edible use, or are wildlife friendly, and sees no problem in combining flowers plants with fruit and vegetables.

A Year in a Small Garden is an engaging combination of down-to-earth practical advice and inspiration. It also gave me an insight into her particularly interesting and varied career. It is however a very particular approach that perhaps won’t fit everyone’s idea of what a garden should be. I confess I found myself a little dismayed at some of the changes Frances is considering which seem to me to risk losing some of its character. However, I’m sure it’s a book I will go back to time and time again when in need of encouragement or inspiration because, as Frances says, ‘no garden is ever finished’.

A Year in a Small Garden fits the ‘Garden’ category of the 2025 Nonfiction Reader Challenge.

In three words: Practical, inspiring, authentic
Try something similar: Hortobiography by Carol Klein

About the Author

Author and gardener Frances Tophill

Frances started her love affair with plants doing an NVQ and apprenticeship at The Salutation Garden in Kent followed quickly by a degree in Horticulture with Plantsmanship at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Her practical gardening experience is extensive, she worked a season at Monet’s garden, has worked at the Andromeda Botanical Garden in Barbados and has done WWOOF work at a number of different locations including work on vineyards and in viticulture.  Frances has spent many years working in gardens with vulnerable adults, including adults with learning disabilities and mental health challenges.  She is passionate about conversation and sustainability and has worked in native tree planting for the Conifer Conservation Project in Edinburgh and for Moor Trees in Devon.  Frances is the Patron of Thanet Urban Forest and works with the RHS on the Campaign for School Gardening.  She is currently Head Gardener and Grower at Sharpham Trust.

In 2022 Frances was awarded best show garden for a sustainable garden design and build at Gardeners’ World Live. On screen Frances is know for her work with Gardeners’ World and Love Your Garden.  She is the author of four books and her down to earth nature make her a popular speaker at garden events. (Photo: Amazon author page/Bio: Arlington Talent Agency)

Connect with Frances
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