Blue Highways
by William Heat-Moon
Our Price: $61.76
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $8.99 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: William Heat-MoonReader: Keith Szarabajka
Edition: Audio Cassette
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Published: 1991-11-01
ISBN: 0671760599
Number of pages: 180
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Book Reviews of Blue Highways
Book Review: A Lot of Good Remains in America
Summary: 5 Stars
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 much to the book.
More so than the above factors, however, I think that Heat-Moon's philsophical bent adds a lot to the book. Blue Highways is not just an account of a trip; in meeting these people and engaging them, Heat-Moon wants to help answer some of the big questions about why we are here and what it means to live a good life. While no one can answer those questions once and for all, Heat-Moon provides some great food for thought.
As several reviewers have pointed out, Heat-Moon's 1978 descriptions of the USA are now poignant due to the changes in our society. Sadly, many of the older people he encountered must now be dead. Many of Heat-Moon's other observations are just as valid today as they were in 1978. Specifically, he laments the increasingly-homogeneous American culture, materialism, careerism, and many other problems.
I first read Blue Highways in 1993. I reread it this summer (2008). It lost nothing on the second reading. If you like travel writing and are at all philosophical, this book will "speak" to you on so many different levels. Don't pass this one up; it's that rare, wonderful book that makes reading all of the mediocre books worthwhile.
Summary of Blue Highways
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.
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)
Travel Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Travel Books
French Travel Pack/ Book and Cassette (Hugo Travel Pack)by Hugo's Language Books
Hunter Pub Inc; Published: 1986-06; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
Trip to the Beach, Aby Robert Blanchard
Brilliance Audio Unabridged; Published: 2000-10-10; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $29.95
Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera Where Every Month Is Enchantedby Annie Hawes
HarperAudio; Published: 2001-01-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $1.90
Price in other shops:
China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Powerby Rob Gifford
Blackstone Audio Inc.; Published: 2007-06-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $45.96
Price in other shops:
Blue Highwaysby William Heat-Moon
Simon & Schuster Audio; Published: 1991-11-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $91.18
A Year in Provence (abridged)Macmillan Audio; Published: 1991-10-15; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $0.07
Price in other shops:
Three Weeks With My Brotherby Nicholas Sparks
Hachette Audio; Published: 2004-04-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $3.79
Price in other shops:
Assassination VacationSimon & Schuster Audio; Published: 2005-03-29; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $6.23
Price in other shops:
Charles Kuralt's AmericaSimon & Schuster Audio; Published: 1995-11-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $7.54
Price in other shops:
Walk With Me : A Self Guided Audio Walking Tour of Pisa and Lucca, Italyby The Cicerone
Bellew's Tours, Inc.; Published: 2001-02-05; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $16.95
Similar Books and other products
The Most Scenic Drives in America: 120 Spectacular Road Tripsby Robert J. Dolezal, Jerry Bates, Barbara Dolezal
Reader's Digest; Published: 2005-03-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.91
Price in other shops:
Roads : Driving America's Great Highwaysby Larry McMurtry
Amazon Remainders Account; Published: 2001-06-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.74
Price in other shops:
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town Americaby Bill Bryson
Harper Perennial; Published: 1990-09-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.85
Price in other shops:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry Into Valuesby Robert M. Pirsig
Macmillan Audio; Published: 1999-06-12; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $24.09
Price in other shops:
On the Road (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)by Jack Kerouac
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1999-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.03
Price in other shops:
On the Back Roads: Discovering Small Towns of Americaby Bill Graves
Addicus Books; Published: 2001-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.49
Price in other shops:
A Walk Across Americaby Peter Jenkins
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2001-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.75
Price in other shops:
Road Trip USA: Cross-Country Adventures on America's Two-Lane Highways.by Jamie Jensen
Avalon Travel Publishing; Published: 2006-03-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.47
Price in other shops:
PrairyErth (A Deep Map): An Epic History of the Tallgrass Prairie Countryby William Least Heat-Moon
Mariner Books; Published: 1999-02-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.45
Price in other shops:
Travels with Charley in Search of America: (Centennial Edition)by John Steinbeck
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2002-02-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.27
Price in other shops: