Rating: 
Summary: One word - fascinating.
Review: I finished Blue Highways approximately 2 weeks ago.Never having even heard of William Least Heat-Moon before, I purchased this book based on Amazon recommendations. My only reference point was that I enjoy travel books. Initially I was a little backed off by the sheer length, and I wondered if the author would be able to hold my attention. It was, therefore, with trepidation that I dipped into Blue Highways. I needn't have been concerned. Yes, the book was long (and occasionally I had to re-read a handful of really detailed paragraphs), but William Least Heat-Moon was able to transport me to many of the tiny towns he visited, and I could feel the often intense discomfort of living for a season in his trusted Goast Dancing. I have true respect for this gentleman! The photographs were a wonderful addition and it was nice to put faces to names. I agree that on occasion he was maybe a little overly critical of "modern" life, as some other reviewers have noted, but his opinion is simply own. I didn't feel he was trying to sway the reader; he was stating facts that he felt were significant, and let the reader digest them and form an opinion of his/her own. In short, I would thoroughly recommend this book. The writing is clever, witty and detailed, and reading Blue Highways will take you on a fascinating journey. I have River Horse ready and waiting as well as PrairyErth!
Rating: 
Summary: Close, but no cigar.
Review: Although I'm only about half-way through this book, I doubt I'll ever finish it. As with some of the other Least Heat Moon books, he jumps between a wonderful ability to describe places, historic settings, and living people with what comes across has an almost immature political view that somehow all economic developement is tinged with evil and ugliness, although he has no problem with cruising the country over roads in an automobile, and through canals in a motorized boat. While I can't quite get a handle on it, there is something missing in his hand-wringing, that smacks more of someone who will forever only see what he wants to see, and of huge ego. If you're leanings are green party and whiny, you'll love this book. For others, it may prove just a bit too much like reading a college newpaper editorial.
Rating: 
Summary: Blue Highways
Review: William Least Heat Moon may be one of the greatest writers of our time. First encountered his work in the New Yorker, which excerpted chapters from Blue Highways. I then (of course) had to read the book, which is an account of his journey in an old van, outfitted for sleeping/living, to see the real United States using only the small roads (which are marked on the map in blue -- hence the title). The events that caused him to put his usual life on hold, and take up this oddyssey, will strike a responsive chord for many readers who have ever wanted to stop the world and step back in time. His experiences, the people he meets, the conversations they enjoy, make for an extraordinary insight into America. His writing sings in the way that the old story tellers did...weaving a web that captures and captivates you until you finish the book. And then you don't stop until you've read all of his books! (Wish he'd write some more). I recommend this book highly for personal reading and for gifts.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book
Review: It was not an easy journey and it's not a quick read, but the interviews are great. Makes you wish you could spend more time with the people he meets. If you read the book a while ago, pick it up and read the May, 1999 Afterword. I bet you'll re-read the whole book.
Rating:
Summary: Over the Blue Highways
Review: In search of the real America, or in need of escape, the author sets out to circle the country in a van, staying only on the state and local roads - the one's that appear blue on his maps. This is the record of what he saw on his trip, from the deep South to the Pacific Northwest, fishermen to farmers, through forests, snowstorms, deserts, and beaches. This novel was deeply personal, and it reflected a feeling I have had in my life to explore the world by experiencing it first hand, not by reading about it in the book. However, sometimes the author seems overly sentimental, bemoaning the loss of regional distinctiveness and lambasting the homogenization of America while not always acknowledging that sometimes changes happen for the better. America has always been a country of change, and he realizes that change is always accompanied by a little bit of pain. As he travels, the philosophizing is not overly explicit. Neither are his personal problems, which are alluded to but not expounded upon. Instead, he lets the people he meets and his experiences with them speak for themselves. Unfortunately, there is nothing very cohesive about the stories, no incentive to get to the end except to see the author's cycle completed. Perhaps a second reading would allow me to pay more attention to the author's personal struggle, but even so, the stories are basically independent, with only the underlying theme of coping with change to tie them together. Perhaps that was the authors' struggle all along.
Rating:
Summary: Favorite Book I own.
Review: I purchased this book at a point in my life where I was desiring escape, and the travelogue genre was obviously appealing. I have read it twice, and am reading it again, and cannot even hope to convey the warmth this book will give you. No matter what point you are at in your life, buy this book, you will not regret it. The author experiences a slice of life that we all wish we could, and his knowledge of the history of his route is astounding, and never presented in an intimidating fashion. He presents the people he meets as they are, and both he and us come away the better for it. Appreciating the simple pleasures in life is underrated, and this book cannot be overrated.
Rating:
Summary: Abook to Read over and over
Review: This is the kind of trvel/spiritualaty book that I read over and over - a few pages at a time - to get a glimpse of America and a spoonful of spirituality at the same time. Moon did something every American should do - travel the country and talk with our countrymen. His reflections on his findings are why I keep going back.
Rating: 
Summary: A Condescending Smirk at Rural America
Review: I tried to like this book, I really did. I started to read it when it first came out, in the 80s, and again recently, and I just didn't enjoy it. It reminds me of PBS specials where some Harvard-educated musicologist ventures into the swamplands to interview old bluesmen, and tell us all the deep socio-economic underpinnings of the lyrics. Forget it. It's just the blues - it's meant to be felt in your bones, not theorized about. "Blue Highways" gave me the same feeling. W.L.H.Moon comes off as self-centered and condescending; he seems to secretly pity those he meets, even as he wants us to chuckle knowingly at them. There are plenty of American travelogues written by people who actually live there. Don't waste your time on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Blue Highways is the last roadmap you'll ever need
Review: I ended up buying 17 copies of Blue Highways before I finally got all the way to the end of it, because I kept giving the one I was reading to friends that I knew would enjoy it as much as I did. Each year since, re-reading Blue Highways melts away the hibernation chill of winter by rekindled the fire of wanderlust and the need to eat some "ho-made pie" at a four-calendar cafe. My own "blue highway" pinacle was a memorable lunch with my college roommate during a two-lane cross-country trip where we found ourselves in a booth in a diner named Grandma's where the menu was what Grandma told us she had cooked for the day and we knew we had hit blue highway heaven when she scolded my friend, smacked his hand with a big wooden spoon and told him he couldn't have both potatoes and macaroni and cheese, that he had to eat a vegetable or she wouldn't let him have any pie for dessert. I caught her winking at the trucker at the counter, and he said that even though he hated vegetables himself, he had eaten them there every day for 20 years because Grandma's pies were worth it. He was right. Here's how Blue Highways reveals the secret to eating well on the road: "There is one almost infallible way to find honest food at just prices in blue-highway America: count the wall calendars in a cafe. No calendar: Same as an interstate pit stop. One Calendar: Preprocessed food assembled in New Jersey. Two calendars: Only if fish trophies present. Three calendars: Can't miss on the farm-boy breakfasts. Four calendars: Try the ho-made pie too. Five calendars: Keep it under your hat, or they'll franchise. One time I found a six-calendar cafe in the Ozarks, which served fried chicken, peach pie, and chocolate malts, that left me searching for another ever since. I've never seen a seven-calendar place. But old-time travelers - road men in a day when cars had running boards and lunchroom windows said AIR COOLED in blue letters with icicles dripping from the tops - those travelers have told me the golden legends of seven-calendar cafes." No maps are needed to travel Blue Highways. Just make sure you eat your veggies and don't make Grandma smack you with that big wooden spoon of hers and enjoy your pie.
Rating:
Summary: Book gives a beautiful look at the people of America.
Review: Take this book on your next long road trip. One of my college professors suggested it and I finally got around to it. I laughed. I thought about and I felt justice and injustice, ancestry and isolation, tolerance and intolerance, naive and wise. You know you have a great book when you share it with others and that's what I did with this book. I felt a connection with the rest of America in our search for the answers to the troubles of our hearts, lives, and communities.
| 
