Travels with Charley in Search of America

Steinbeck, John

ISBN 10: 0142429198 ISBN 13: 9780142429198

Publisher: Penguin Group USA, 2011

Synopsis

In September 1960, John Steinbeck embarked on a journey across America. He felt that he might have lost touch with the country, with its speech, the smell of its grass and trees, its color and quality of light, the pulse of its people. To reassure himself, he set out on a voyage of rediscovery of the American identity, accompanied by a distinguished French poodle named Charley; and riding in a three-quarter-ton pickup truck named Rocinante.
 
His course took him through almost forty states: northward from Long Island to Maine; through the Midwest to Chicago; onward by way of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana (with which he fell in love), and Idaho to Seattle, south to San Francisco and his birthplace, Salinas; eastward through the Mojave, New Mexico, Arizona, to the vast hospitality of Texas, to New Orleans and a shocking drama of desegregation; finally, on the last leg, through Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to New York.

About this title

Review:

"Pure delight, a pungent potpourri of places and people interspersed with bittersweet essays on everything from the emotional difficulties of growing old to the reasons why giant sequoias arouse such awe." --The New York Times Book Review

"Profound, sympathetic, often angry . . . an honest moving book by one of our great writers." --The San Francisco Examiner

"This is superior Steinbeck--a muscular, evocative report of a journey of rediscovery." --John Barkham, Saturday Review Syndicate

"The eager, sensuous pages in which he writes about what he found and whom he encountered frame a picture of our human nature in the twentieth century which will not soon be surpassed." --Edward Weeks, The Atlantic Monthly

Pure delight, a pungent potpourri of places and people interspersed with bittersweet essays on everything from the emotional difficulties of growing old to the reasons why giant sequoias arouse such awe. The New York Times Book Review

Profound, sympathetic, often angry . . . an honest moving book by one of our great writers. The San Francisco Examiner

This is superior Steinbecka muscular, evocative report of a journey of rediscovery. John Barkham, Saturday Review Syndicate

The eager, sensuous pages in which he writes about what he found and whom he encountered frame a picture of our human nature in the twentieth century which will not soon be surpassed. Edward Weeks, The Atlantic Monthly

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Book Description:

John Steinbeck's account of an astonishing journey across America

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Group USA
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0142429198
• ISBN 13: 9780142429198
• Binding: Audio CD