Books That Make The Trip

As we have reported in M2Moms® E-ssentials, Kelley Styring, principal of InsightFarm Inc. and good friend of the M2W® and M2Moms® communities, is working on a follow-up to her insightful book, In Your Purse: Archaeology of the American Handbag called In Your Car: Road Trip through the American Automobile. She has just finished driving 5,500 miles of American Highways with her family this summer---conducting ethnographies in 7 cities, visiting great American icons and automotive roadside oddities and writing a blog (www.inyourcarroadtrip.com) so others could enjoy her journey as well. And, she managed to read some books.

What makes for a good read on a family road trip? Kelley Styring gives us a list of what books made the trip and why you shouldn't leave home without them:

1) Jane and Michael Stern's Road Food book without which we would never have found Van's Pig Stand BBQ in Shawnee Oklahoma -- a total highlight of our trip.  Some of the best slide-off-the-bone ribs I've ever tasted in my entire life.  I am wiping a little bit of drool off my chin right now thinking about it.
 
2) Mapquest Roadmaster Large Scale Road Atlas.  My eyes are getting a bit tired now that I'm over 40 and while we had a GPS, "Stella" was really only interested in getting us where we needed to go quickly.  We prefer side roads and adventures along the way.  With a good, trusty, old fashioned Atlas and large print we could read while taking wrong turns and arguing with the GPS lady, we were in good hands -- well, most of the time.
 
3) Jerry McClanahan's EZ 66 -- Route 66 Guide for Travelers.  Indisputably the very best guide to the roads that really no longer exists (it's now a cluge of other roads knitted together with touristy signs).  This book is a fun, illustrated, opinionated guide to all of the hokum of the best highway in America.  Really, if you're ever traveling from Chicago South or from California across the Southwest, this book will add texture to your journey.  If not for this book we would have missed many adventures.
 
4) John Steinbeck Travels with Charley.  This is the original Road Trip book.  Steinbeck goes on a long driving journey with his dog in search of America and finds his way home.  On the way, he meets interesting people, has conversations with his dog, and ruminates on garbage, drinking, women, and everything else that makes life grand.  This book is a gem.
 
5) Jack Kerouac On the Road.  This is the much more broadly acclaimed Road Trip book that's part psychedelic trip through jazz music and part road grit in your teeth.  Originally written on one long piece of paper, this book captures all of the intensity of coiled youth.  It is witty, intelligent and fingernails on the blackboard all at the same time -- just like many young people I know.  Definitely worth a revisit if this was something you read in high school.
 
6) Janet Evanovich Fearless Fourteen.  Okay, I've read all 13 other Stephanie Plum bounty hunter books and I do own a Rangeman t-shirt that I wear to bed for obvious reasons if you've read these books (our secret).  But, honestly, she phoned this one in.  Stephanie does not roll in garbage or bed either man we like to read about, so what's with that?  On the other hand, grandma does play cyber games in costume and people get shot with a potato gun, so there are still laughs.  A little more heat would have been nice, so I just reread books two through ten enjoying them just as much as the first read and SO much better than 14.  Doesn't matter, I'll still mark the release date and anticipate number 15, which is still unnamed and due sometime early summer 2009.  

7) David Sedaris When You Are Engulfed in Flames.   He always makes me laugh, hard.  I read this at the beginning of the trip and kept going back to passages to read aloud in the car to the family.  One story in this collection of shorts is about sneezing a cough drop out of his mouth onto the lap of a passenger sleeping next to him on a plane.  It ends in profanity.  I like funny stories that can be shared.