Westport Public Library BOOK blog

About 25 years ago, I was enthralled by the graceful writing and fascinating facts of Blue Highways: a journey into America by William Least Heat Moon. I still think of his description of the fishing expedition which caught the fish that ended up in fast food fish sandwiches. I haven't eaten one of those sandwiches since! The native American author, an English professor, traveled around America on the "blue highways" or the secondary roads on the maps he used. In each cranny of America, he introduced the reader to another way of American life. Another book published at the same time was Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon. With a less leisurely tone, Simon told of his circumnavigation of the world by motorcycle! The trip took him four years to complete. Now, Edward Bishop has written Riding with Rilke: reflections on motorcycles and books. A Canadian English professor, Bishop rode his motorcycle from Alberta to Austin, Texas while on sabbatical. In this account, his love of archival research is equal only to his love of biking. Our Library cataloger told me that if she were still teaching cataloging, this book would be the final exam. (We decided to put it with the travel books.) On the distaff side, there is Lois on the Loose: One Woman, One Motorcycle, 20,000 Miles Across the Americas, an adventure in which Lois Pryce reports on her version of Jupiter's Travels. Beginning and ending with her desk job at BBC, the trip is a "biker sitcom" of nine months of "big bugs, bad food and lots of dirt." For an exquisite trip into the diaries of five centuries of travelers, enjoy Journeys and Journals: five centuries of Travel Writing with text by Farid Abdelouahab. From the conquest of North Carolina to modern Women of Southern India, journal drawings and some photos will enhance your armchair traveling.