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Blue Highways: A Journey into America
by: William Least Heat-Moon

List Price: $14.00

Price: $9.50

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Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.304927
EAN: 9780395925027
ISBN: 0395925029
Label: Mariner Books
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 421
Publication Date: August 15, 1998
Publisher: Mariner Books
Studio: Mariner Books
Sales Rank: 1441788

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
William Least Heat-Moon's journey into America began with little more than the need to put home behind him. At a turning point in his life, he packed up a van he called Ghost Dancing and escaped out of himself and into the country. The people and places he discovered on his roundabout 13,000-mile trip down back roads ("blue highways") and through small, forgotten towns are unexpected, sometimes mysterious, and full of the spark and wonder of ordinary life. Robert Penn Warren said, "He has a genius for finding people who have not even found themselves." The power of Heat-Moon's writing and his delight in the overlooked and the unexamined capture a sense of our national destiny, the true American experience. (A Mariner Reissue)

Amazon.com Review:
First published in 1982, William Least Heat-Moon's account of his journey along the back roads of the United States (marked with the color blue on old highway maps) has become something of a classic. When he loses his job and his wife on the same cold February day, he is struck by inspiration: "A man who couldn't make things go right could at least go. He could quit trying to get out of the way of life. Chuck routine. Live the real jeopardy of circumstance. It was a question of dignity."

Driving cross-country in a van named Ghost Dancing, Heat-Moon (the name the Sioux give to the moon of midsummer nights) meets up with all manner of folk, from a man in Grayville, Illinois, "whose cap told me what fertilizer he used" to Scott Chisholm, "a Canadian citizen ... [who] had lived in this country longer than in Canada and liked the United States but wouldn't admit it for fear of having to pay off bets he made years earlier when he first 'came over' that the U.S. is a place no Canadian could ever love." Accompanied by his photographs, Heat-Moon's literary portraits of ordinary Americans should not be merely read, but savored.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Curiously popular
I like both travel books and memoirs, well-written ones at least. Furthermore, I love long-distance driving (I find it therapeutic), and for years I have fantasized about taking an extended road trip around the United States. Thus, I am predisposed to liking BLUE HIGHWAYS. Alas, actually reading it proved to be somewhat of a slog. And this was my second attempt. My first was 25 years ago, shortly after buying the book (third printing of the hardback first edition); I managed to read only half of it back then. I now have more time for reading, so this time I made it through the book from cover to cover, although it took me two months of off-and-on reading.

To my mind, BLUE HIGHWAYS is an okay but not special book (3.3 stars if such fine gradations were permitted). Hence, I ... Read More

Rating:

- BLUE HIGHWAYS
A very enjoyable book which takes the reader along the lesser traveled roads across the US. It is like a travelogue with addition of the charming characters Least-Moon meets along the way. Recommended

Rating:

- Small-town America twenty-five years ago....a classic
A little over twenty-five years ago William Trogden, who took the name of his Native American ancestors and called himself William Least Heat Moon, set out on a journey across America in what was basically the ancestor of the modern SUV, a small truck which he named Ghost Dancing.

Initially he did this because he had lost his job and his wife in the space of a month, but his journey turned into much more than just an attempt to forget. It became a classic search for and journey into the heart of the country.

This is not a trip into the weirdness of America, although Least Heat Moon encounters plenty of strange sites and people on his journey. It is more of a trip into the heart and soul of the country - figuratively as well as literally. There have been many books ... Read More

Rating:

- Tour book
Took a tour of America with a chip on his shoulder. Guess it gives you a different perspective.

Rating:

- A Lot of Good Remains in America
I have written many reviews for Amazon.com. Blue Highways is the only book to which I've given five stars. I would recommend it to anyone.

Blue Highways is William Least Heat-Moon's account of his 1978 low-budget car ride across America. Heat-Moon's reporting reminds me a lot of Charles Kuralt's On the Road reports for CBS News. Heat-Moon has a talent for engaging strangers on the road and bringing out the best in them.

What separates Blue Highways from so many other travel books? There are a variety of factors. Heat-Moon is a good writer. He understands pacing - and does not allow the story to bog down. He is, overwhelmingly, positive about the people and places that he encounters. Heat-Moon took pictures of many of the people he met and I think that those pictures add ... Read More

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