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climberjohn Samba Member
Joined: January 11, 2005 Posts: 1840 Location: Portland Orygun
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Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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Danziger's Travels
Best travel book I've EVER read:
http://www.nickdanziger.com/index/books/danzigers-travels/
Blue Highways
a classic.
long steven king or john grisham novels on MP3 from audible.com for long road trips.
-Cj _________________ '86 Westy, 2.5 Subaru power
Know your limits. Exceed them often. |
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juanb Samba Member
Joined: December 03, 2009 Posts: 535 Location: San Francisco, CA
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Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 7:52 pm Post subject: |
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Autonauts of the Cosmoroute, by Julio Cortazar.
Cortazar and his wife drove the less than 500 miles from Paris to Marseille in his Bay Window Westy, stopping at every rest stop, and taking about 30 days. It's a very playful, silly book, and being a big fan of Cortazar's, it's one of the things that made me want a Westy.
Here is a blurb:
http://quarterlyconversation.com/autonauts-of-the-cosmoroute-by-julio-cortazar-revie
j _________________ 1989 Westy AT, 2.2 GoWesty.
We drove it to Argentina: http://www.vanenvan.com |
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debbiej Samba Member
Joined: December 14, 2008 Posts: 1556 Location: las cruces, nm
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Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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I vowed to never own a kindle or nook or anything that tried to replace a book. but now I have one, and love it. download books before a trip. many are free, and you can read in the dark.... |
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seanjenn Samba Member
Joined: March 07, 2009 Posts: 722 Location: TAOS
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Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 8:50 am Post subject: |
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Education of a Wandering Man: Louis L'Amour
Puddin' Head Wilson: Mark Twain _________________ 1987 GL Sunroof
2.1 4 spd |
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bosruten Samba Member
Joined: February 11, 2011 Posts: 551
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Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 9:35 am Post subject: |
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seanjenn wrote: |
Education of a Wandering Man: Louis L'Amour
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X2...what a life! _________________ '87 Syncro Weekender |
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Syncronicity Samba Member
Joined: March 09, 2009 Posts: 839 Location: Glenwood Springs, CO
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Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 9:57 am Post subject: |
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What a timely thread. Received a Kindle Fire for Christmas. Will be bringing 100s of books along on future road trips. Looking forward to more recommendations. _________________ Tom, Juanita, Iggy & Abbey the Dirty Desert Dogs
2.1 L 87 Syncro
KD0ALU
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I I======[]IIIII[]
()_)------()_)----)_) |
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seanjenn Samba Member
Joined: March 07, 2009 Posts: 722 Location: TAOS
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Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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bosruten wrote: |
seanjenn wrote: |
Education of a Wandering Man: Louis L'Amour
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X2...what a life! |
You got that right.
That book was a game changer for me, in a big way.
Anyone, man or woman, feeling the itch to roam should read this book.
I've read and re-read and traveled with my copy so much it's falling apart. Held together with tape mostly. I've thought about passing it on to a fellow traveler but, I don't know, that's MY book. _________________ 1987 GL Sunroof
2.1 4 spd |
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sub-hatchtim Samba Member
Joined: September 19, 2006 Posts: 2610 Location: Phoenix AZ
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Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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anything!! written by Paulo Cahelo _________________ 58' pg/sg silo fridge westy
58 Dove blue singlecab
76 911S |
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yeti@home Samba Member
Joined: July 17, 2011 Posts: 2 Location: Western Mass.
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Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 6:55 pm Post subject: Reading on roadtrips |
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Hmmm. Travels with Charley. Steinbeck was bitter and pretty far in the bottle. Good book even so.
Hmmm. Blue Highways. Least Heat Moon had just gone through a bad divorce and wasn't in a very good mood. Good book, even so.
Then I found Out West by Dayton Duncan. Finally someone doing a big trip who wasn't pissed off. Great book, really.
Also anything by Wallace Stegner. But especially his book of short stories, Marking the Sparrow's Fall, is a complete treasure. Makes me want to go West again; ASAP.
Allen |
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Saguache Samba Member
Joined: December 28, 2009 Posts: 360 Location: Gunnison, CO
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Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 9:00 pm Post subject: |
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"Outposts", "The Map that Changed the Word", and "Krakatoa" all by Simon Winchester.
Started with audio books of these, but am enjoying them on Kindle too _________________ Matt Thyer
http://zenoswagen.wordpress.com/ |
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Mark Lewalski Samba Member
Joined: June 19, 2010 Posts: 406 Location: Safety Harbor, FL (Tampa Bay)
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Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 9:05 pm Post subject: |
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Sailing being one of my other interests...
Sailing Alone Around the World - Joshua Slocum
Got it from a friend and ended up reading it during a business trip. Amazing journey in under 200 pages.
X2 on A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson
His trip on the Appalachian Trail with a buddy. Whets your appetite to get outside.
and if you can find them...
The Quiller series books by Adam Hall
Cold War spy thrillers with action scenes written like nothing I had ever encountered before.
Mark _________________ '89 Vanagon GL Wolfsburg "Bluestar" (given to and owned by my son now)
'87 Vanagon Weekender
'74 Thing |
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WestyBob Samba Member
Joined: June 11, 2004 Posts: 2346 Location: Portland, Oregon
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Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 11:21 pm Post subject: |
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All of the above plus I'll throw in a few ....
If you're into the early hippie thing then "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" about Kesey and Wavy Gravy's trip in Further.
If you're searching for spirituality but not religion try "A Joseph Campbell Companion" reader ... an amalgam of the commonality of the human experience everywhere as represented in myth and art from the beginning of human existence based on his life-long research.
If you like western facts then anything by Greg Michno such as "The Deadliest Indian War in the West" and "A Fate Worse Than Death".
Or you can try Richard Grant's "God's Middle Finger" ... an account of his journalistic investigation deep into the Sierra Madres, alleged base of the drug lords. |
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climberjohn Samba Member
Joined: January 11, 2005 Posts: 1840 Location: Portland Orygun
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Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 5:13 am Post subject: |
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SOT (Slightly Off Topic) . . .
For you Kindle fans, keep in mind that every "book" you buy from Amazon is another nail in the coffin of your friendly neighborhood book store. When bookstores go extinct, and Amazon (or a similar single corporation) effectively owns the sales and distribution of almost all digital books, that will be a very, very sad day.
-CJ _________________ '86 Westy, 2.5 Subaru power
Know your limits. Exceed them often. |
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droogvan Samba Member
Joined: July 29, 2005 Posts: 258 Location: Grand Rapids, MI
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Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 5:17 am Post subject: |
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irgsmoore4 wrote: |
Try reading " In search of captian zero" by Allan C. Weisbecker. Then you'll really get the urge to go traveling . |
x2. I'll never probably get to surf being somewhat geographically challenged but man I wanted to after reading this. Another book by the same author Cosmic Banditos pretty good as well. Maybe a little heavy on quantum physics for me but the drug running stories reeled me in.
I take Henry Rollins "Smile, You're Traveling" with me from time to time. _________________ 89 Westy zetec
Some ol bullshit |
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Syncronicity Samba Member
Joined: March 09, 2009 Posts: 839 Location: Glenwood Springs, CO
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Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 9:16 am Post subject: |
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Quote: |
every "book" you buy from Amazon is another nail in the coffin of your friendly neighborhood book store. |
Just like everything else in this world. Evolve or fade away. I will still visit and purchase from small book stores, but they need to offer more. My Kindle is for traveling. I don't need to pick one or two books to take on the plane, to the hut, camping or on a road trip. I can bring as many as I'd like. I didn't want my music stores to go away, but I am doing okay without them. I don't know how the devices effect the environment, but it seems that e-books require far less natural resources than a paper book. I'm just thinking out loud. It is what it is and e-books aren't going away. I suppose that every book I check out of the library would be another nail in my book sellers coffin also. _________________ Tom, Juanita, Iggy & Abbey the Dirty Desert Dogs
2.1 L 87 Syncro
KD0ALU
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kurt vonnagon Samba Member
Joined: May 23, 2011 Posts: 195 Location: mechanicsburg pa.
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Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 5:44 am Post subject: |
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1951, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye we all have a little Holden in us. |
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RBEmerson Samba Member
Joined: November 05, 2011 Posts: 2108 Location: SE PA
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Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 7:38 am Post subject: |
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Sorry but I can't resist. Slocum needs to be taken with a grain of salt. It helps to know some of his back story (professional captain, for example). The circumnavigation was impressive but it's clear he wasn't adverse to ...ah... tuning his story a bit. Ditto for L'Amour, who was ...um... shall we say not adverse to self-promotion? Finally, Bryson... I've tried to like Bryson. And I just can't do it. His Appalachian Trail tale is... well... it's just plain whiny. C'mon, Bill, put your big boy boots on and hike the AT or shut up.
So what to read in place of the above? Robert Louis Stevenson! This man was a serious traveler (check out his bio!). "Treasure Island" is still as good a read as ever. Ditto for "Kidnapped" and "Black Arrow". And if you can find the editions illustrated by Howard Pyle, so much the better. (Hint: check out Dover's catalog) While on Pyle and Dover, check out his Robin Hood and other "knights and fair ladys" storys - good stories and great artwork, too!
For sea stories, Erskin Childers' "The Riddle of the Sands" is one of the first spy stories written. Set in the period prior to WWI, it was both an excellent novel and a civil servant's admonition to the British Foreign Office to watch more closely the danger Germany presented. Consider, too, Childers' own story, a tragic tale involving the Irish revolution - "A Thirst for the Sea". And, back to "Riddle", look for Sam Llewellen's "The Shadow in the Sands" which continues Childers' "Riddle" story. Llewellen's sea stories are somewhat like Dick Francis gone to sea or maybe closer to Jack Higgins' sea stories (also good reads!). (Higgins' earlier "fighting the Nazis" stories are now somewhat dated but good stories, his later stories, usually involving the SAS in some way, just don't do as well for me)
Sterling Hayden's "Wanderer" is a good personal account. I do not recommend his "Neptune's Car," which is on the short list of books I just couldn't bring myself to finish.
Finally, there's always C. S Forester's Hornblower series. I know some folks get all fanboy about Patrick O'Brian. IMNSHO, O'Brian (as he styled himself - he wasn't even forthright about his name) wished he was Forester. Anyway, "The African Queen", "The Good Shepard", "Rifleman Dodd" (best of luck finding this one - although it may be found paired with "The Gun", not one of my fave Forester stories), are far better stories. And for those wanting to know about some of the back story to the period of Hornblower, et al., read Forester's "The Age of Fighting Sail". _________________ Lord, give me coffee to change the things I can change, and wine to accept the things I can't change. |
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IdahoDoug Samba Member
Joined: June 12, 2010 Posts: 10251 Location: N. Idaho
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Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 9:55 am Post subject: |
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Random cool "which book to read" story that happened to me. About 10 years ago my wife and I towed our boat to Roosevelt Lake in N. Washington State for the first time. We took the back way. A fire station was having a fund raiser garage sale and locals had donated stuff to sell. I bought a small box of books. Once in the water, I reached in and randomly grabbed a book which turned out to be the true story of the Thompson - explorer that REALLY explored the Pacific NorthWest before Louis & Clark "discovered" the area (they had his map with them...).
The story winds all over the huge territory. On about the 3rd evening, I am reading that they are going through a canyon but spending the night on one side at a primitive French trading house. We were anchored in a small bay, and had passed it up looking for a place to spend the night before turning around and coming back to it. I suddenly realized that where we turned around was a tiny bridge with a landmark historical building on one end of it. Yes, that building was the road house. We were sleeping a few hundred yards from the spot in the random book I was reading described, and I had randomly arrived at this spot in the book.
Wild, eh?
DougM _________________ 1987 2WD Wolfsburg Vanagon Weekender "Mango", two fully locked 80 Series LandCruisers. 2017 Subaru Outback boxer. 1990 Audi 90 Quattro 20V with rear locking differential, 1990 burgundy parts Vanagon. 1984 Porsche 944, 1988 Toyota Supra 5 speed targa, 2002 BMW 325iX, 1982 Toyota Sunrader |
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RBEmerson Samba Member
Joined: November 05, 2011 Posts: 2108 Location: SE PA
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Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 11:50 am Post subject: |
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Er, perhaps not so random? _________________ Lord, give me coffee to change the things I can change, and wine to accept the things I can't change. |
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John Sullivan Samba Member
Joined: July 04, 2006 Posts: 170 Location: Lansdale, PA
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Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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RB, You like Hornblower. Try Alexander Kent's Bolitho series. More books and great adventures. Tales about the English Navy from the late 1700 to early 1800. Great stories. |
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