A transcription (no doubt edited) of a four day men’s trip to hike north of Seattle by Shields (55 years old, successful novelist and essayist, UWashington Professor, father of one 20-something daughter) and Powell (43 year old, stay at home dad who writes around the periphery while raising his 3 daughters and who was a former student of Shields at UW).  The dialogues is alive, witty, at times deep, filled with literary allusions and gossip (DFW, Robert Olen Butler, Coetzee, Hitchens, et alii), and dances around the question of whether you must choose between living a full life or being an accomplished artist.  Yeats, Kundera, Pritchett are all quoted and Shields defends the life of art while Powell defends the life of living—travel, drugs, sex, experience.  In the tradition of Dinner with Andre, Sideways, and The Trip 1 & 2), this is a fun trip with two bright, witty, well-read, and deep -thinking companions.  Lots of good quotes and books to be read:  Eula Bliss, Maugham’s Rain, Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello, Pritchett’s “It’s all in the art. You get no credit for living.” Kundera’s  “Happiness is the longing for repetition.”  Lots here to enjoy, savor, laugh at, and think about.  Man trip?  Maybe.