Friday, August 6, 2021

Our Towns

 Our Towns: A 100,000 Mile Journey Into the Heart of America

by James Fallows and Deborah Fallows

Pantheon Books 2018: 413 pages. Nonfiction.

For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-prop airplane, visiting small cities and meeting civic leaders, factory workers, recent immigrants, and young entrepreneurs, seeking to take the pulse and discern the outlook of an America that is unreported and unobserved by the national media. Attending town meetings, breakfasts at local coffee shops, and events at local libraries, they have listened to the challenges and problems that define American lives today. Our Towns is the story of their journey--an account of their visits to twenty-one cities and towns: the individuals they met, the stories they heard, and their portrait of the many different faces of the American future


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Travels With Charley

by John Steinbeck

Penguin Books: 1986. c1962. 277 pages. Nonfiction

With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.





by Chandler O'Leary

Sasquatch Books: 2019. 207 pages. Nonfiction

What better place for a road trip than the West Coast (the best coast, by any measure)? From San Diego, California, all the way up to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, you'll find off-the-beaten-path adventures up and down the coast. This charming illustrated guide features both the coastal route via historic Highways 101 and 1 (the PCH) and an inland route up Highway 99, showcasing the natural beauty along the shore while also connecting the traveler to major cities and other attractions. Includes side trips to destinations such as Catalina Island, Joshua Tree National Park, Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks, wine country, Crater Lake National Park, the Columbia River Gorge, Mount Rainier National Park, the San Juan Islands, and Vancouver, BC. Also includes in-depth city guides to San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle. Chock-full of unusual facts, hidden history, roadside attractions, and Americana, this offbeat road trip through California, Oregon, and Washington tells a story of the diversity and depth that created the West Coast we know and love today, showcasing both the ever-changing present and vestiges of the past for those who slow down to look. Perfect for fans of Atlas Obscura, Rebecca Solnit, and Julia Rothman.

NS





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