I've had a soft spot for nonfiction
travel books since I received a hardcover of Kon-Tiki
the Christmas I was 10.
I've
read and re-read most of Paul Theroux's curmudgeonly accounts of travels by train. But except for early chapters of The Old
Patagonia Express, most of his
journeys take place overseas.
I
prefer books about domestic journeys--especially this summer as I
plan a trip as my father-in-law's co-driver in his 1930 Ford Model A
Town Sedan from suburban Denver to Hickory Corners, Michigan.
As I
plotted our route across Kansas and Missouri via Highway 36, I've
considered the US travel books I've read—and which I might take
with me in the Model A. Not owning an e-reader, I want to limit
myself to a single volume.
I
recently re-read John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley.
And not that long ago I read The Home Front, Alistair
Cooke's account of driving across America in a Lincoln Zephyr during
the early years of the second world war.
Considering
our projected route, I'm leaning toward a re-read of William Least
Heat-Moon's Blue Highways.
Or perhaps River-Horse,
his 1999 account of an Atlantic to Pacific trip by small boat. Still,
that book's an unknown. Can I trust it to match the quality of Blue
Highways or PrairieErth??
I
could take a mass paperback of Stephen Coonts's The
Cannibal Queen, a highly
re-readable account of flying through the lower 48 in a 1942 Stearman
open cockpit biplane.
Do you have a suggestion?
4 comments:
Great list! I'm noting them down for future reading. I love travel and have made that the theme of my blog. I ran across several travel stories by Mark Twain and, since we love to cruise, I read the collection of stories about his cruise in 1860, Innocents Abroad I cannot imagine crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a side wheeler.
Back then a side wheeler was high tech.
I can think of a few movies about traveling in unique ways.
Up by Disney and Danny Deckchair by a film company in Australia. Both have to do with tying weather balloons onto a house and a lawn chair to get away from it all. :-)
I'm sure I'd prefer a 1930 Ford.
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