Blue Highways: A Journey into America Book

I feel awfully guilty not taking the time to give back to this book what it gave to me; its carefully shaped and caressed words of observation and wisdom. It deserves much more, but, like Heat-Moon, I am on my own journey right now, writing my own inner book. In it, he sets out in a spartan van named "Ghost Dancing," roughly following the "blue highways" (the most rural of rural roads) along the entire border of the Lower 48 to discover himself, the country, or, whatever, after losing his job and his marriage. Heat-Moon encounters people and places in America clinging to fast-disappearing ways and attitudes of life. As a document of this transition taking place three decades ago, the book is invaluable. The end result is the best travel memoir I've ever read, rich in detail and soulfulness. I took it slowly and in its own spirit, sipping and nibbling at it for a whole month and chewing lazily to taste it fully. In the same way that some people read the Bible almost exclusively, I think, were I to have only one book to re-read over and over on a desert island, this could easily be that book. Maybe someday--once the immediate concerns of my practical life are settled--I'll dig into my notes and provide a review that captures the flavor and strengths of this special work.