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Summary: Blue Highways Made an Indelible Imprint on My Life
Review: This book was the best present my grandmother ever gave me. I read Blue Highways years ago, when I was still an impressionable youth. The story and Moon's incredible gift for imagery still resonate in my mind. I've spent the last decade or so hoping that some day I'll get the chance to take a trip as incredible as Moon's. This book made me want to soak up all that is great about America. Read it, you won't regret it.
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Summary: the book that changed my life
Review: I read this book in the fall of my senior year in high school. To put it simply, it changed my life. William Least Heat Moon's outlook on life, his curiousity about everyday folk, it just blew me away. When my father and I went to visit colleges, we'd stop at restaurants and see how many wall calendars they had. The book showed how life isn't about rushing the whole time, making a ton of money, success in life is not dictated by these things. On the contrary, appreciate what's right in front of you. I'm a sophomore in college now, I still don't have the answers to the world, nobody really does, but I thank Blue Highways for instilling in me a curiousity and drive to enjoy the finer, simpler things in life.
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Summary: Some engrosing conversations, but few and far between
Review: Although William Least Heat-Moon's book does contain a few interesting pictures of American life, and his run-ins with such characters as farmers, diner-owners and a shipbuilder are sort of folksy and wonderful, they are so buried in the minor, uninteresting details of the trip as to make the reader wish that Least Heat-Moon had written a magazine article instead of a 412-page tome.
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Summary: honest and adventuresome
Review: Heat-Moon has done what many of us have only thought of doing--travel a large portion of the USA by road with no set agenda or time pressure. He shows a knack for seeking out interesting people who *are* the United States; many colours, many religions, many interests. Having lived for seven years in one of the towns he passed through and knowing the people he spoke with--and his account of them is quite believable--I'm inclined to believe as well that he represented the rest of the people and places honestly.I send copies of this book to penpals in other countries, as one of the easiest ways to explain my country's character.
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Summary: My personal bible, one of the best books I've ever read.
Review: William Least Heat-Moon captures in this book the essence of life, to live it fully. Heat-Moon is a spirit, free of society's constraints, and able to test the boundaries of sense. He learns from the people he meets along his journey, "...I can't say that I learned what I wanted to know because I hadn't known what I wanted to know. but I did learn what I hadn't known I wanted to know..."(p411)
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Summary: I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats...
Review: A fantastic book in which the author presents his tour through america via the "Blue Highways". An impressive cast of characters, which could only come from real life, are met along the way inside each greasy spoon and small town filling station. With keen insight and a wonderful sense of humor, Moon takes us along inside Ghost Dancing (his Ford van-bed-study) equipped only with $400 and copies of Whitman and "Black Elk Speaks". Highly recommended for anyone who has ever hit-the-road or has ever wanted to...
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Summary: Masterful Command of Language
Review: I loved this book! And while I largely agree with the other customers reviewing this book, what differentiates this book from other "journey" books is Heat Moon's poetic prose.
This author loves the language, and liberally uses simile and metaphor throughout. I have read and re-read this book many times, enjoying the way the author puts sentences together.
Example (Pt 7 Ch 7) "In a hotel room at the geographical center of North America, a neon sign blinking red through the cold curtains, I lay quietly like a small idea in a vacant mind."
Or, from Pt 5, Ch 4: "Dirty and hard, the morning light could have been old concrete." That resonates with me, because I can picture in my mind just what that morning light looks like -- and that's the crux of why I love this book: the visual imagery created from his language.
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Summary: A good book that shows what the United States is realy about
Review: Blue Highways is a throughly enjoyable book that shows the reader the back roads of this country. The symbolisis presented throughout the book gives the reader an insight into the lives of "average" everyday people who live their lives out of the spotlight. To many times we are locked up in the popular culture that tells us what we should be doing, how often do we stop and think about what life is realy about? William Least-Heat Moon's book is one of the american classics that force us to stop and think about where we have come from.
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Summary: An unforgettable book about the unseen best in America
Review: Blue Highways, a book that sends you to an America that you rarely hear about, uncovering its natural beauty in the places he visits and people he meets. An unforgettable escape into the heart of America that makes you look back and realize what a great nation this is. A definite desert island book
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Summary: Living in the blank spaces of maps
Review: The author meets ordinary people in places where the mainstream no longer flows but life continues. Places like Nameless, Tennessee come to life as part of an America with both substance and depth. This is the kind of book you give to friends and buy a new copy rather than take back
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