Rating: 
Summary: This one is for anyone that ever wanted to escape.
Review: I first read this book about 8 years ago, and recently read it again. The second read was more enjoyable than the first. This is a witty, thorough and refreshing story of a man who turns some bad times into the time of his life, at least from the reader's perspective. The author takes us on his tour of the backroads (a.k.a. blue highways) of America as he searches for the next stage of his life. Anyone that doesn't enjoy some aspect of this book better check to see if they have a heart. This story should appeal to everyone's desire at one point in their life to just drop everything, get away from the world, and go see America, and perhaps find themselves in the process. In the case of the book's author, that choice was made for him. This story should appeal to everyone, from the high school graduate, to the college student, to the yuppie, to the hippie, to the middle-ager, and to the empty-nester. It will give you a refreshing breath of how great a place America really is, and it left me wanting to pack my bags. The book even gives you maps of the author's journey should you want to do just that
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Summary: Journey across the lesser known byways of America
Review: Mr. Moon's unforgetable journey to the off the beaten paths
of America. He captures the soul of our nation as it use to
be. Here are desciptions of the people that one rarely
hears or reads about. If you want to learn about what
makes this country great...read Blue Highways. It will give you inspiration to journey to the off-beat roads of
America.
Rating:
Summary: A keeper
Review: I read this book 20 years ago and I still have the original copy that I read back then. I just loved this book. In fact, I did a similar trip to Moon's, on a much smaller scale, and I even named my van "Ghostdancing" after his. It is a fun book and one in which the reader feels privileged to get a peek inside his spiritual journey. It is deeper than it first appears. I was touched by it.
Rating: 
Summary: condescending and self-absorbed
Review: This is just a terrible book.
I can't understanding the enthusiam of some of the other reviewers. The book is a boring downer, and he seems like a nasty piece of work.
Stay away.
Rating:
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST I'VE READ and REREAD
Review: Like many I first read this work over twenty years ago. I admit that I reread if every few years. Not only is it a wonderful travel book, which at first glance, it is just that, a travel book, but it is much more. It is a search for a missing part of a man's life, one, I truely hope the author found. It is very well written. The author has a wonderful command of the language, and is a wonderful story teller. This is truely one of the few classics which came out of that era. I had to laugh, and sort of cry at the same time when I read a recent, previous review here were the young man claimed he was apprently forced (good for his teacher) to read this book for a English Gifted and Talented Class in High School. He hated it. I guess everone has their own cup of tea, but in my work I do run into a number of contemporary (gifted High School English children who pretty well know it all) folks in these classes...that is where the crying part comes in...I truely am worried about us. Be that as it may, if you want to bite into a great read, a timeless read, and come away,I think, a better person, then I highly recommend this one..Warning though..you will actually be forced to think while reading this one.
Rating:
Summary: A keeper
Review: I read this book 20 years ago and I still have the original copy that I read back then. I just loved this book. In fact, I did a similar trip to Moon's, on a much smaller scale, and I even named my van "Ghostdancing" after his. It is a fun book and one in which the reader feels privileged to get a peek inside his spiritual journey. It is deeper than it first appears. I was touched by it.
Rating:
Summary: This is ABSOLUTELY the WORST book I have EVER read!!!
Review: In William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, he tells his personal experience of his travels across the country. He feels his life is turned upside down and he needs to escape it. Taking his van, Ghost Dancing, for the ride, he has the adventure of a lifetime. He comes to points in his journey where life is more exciting than others, and places where the wind never blows. Overall, he meets several people on his way across the country and stays in several towns. He learns the variety of ways god is believed in, the history of flying, and the way that's several of the towns he visits was started. If you like to read about other peoples travels, than I suggest this book to you. It will be hard to find at a local library, but it can be found. The author goes into detail on several different points and is very organized. He tells the story just as it seemed to happen and doesn't confuse the reader one bit. This story is very educational and leaves the reader with the want to travel the country, as did the author of this book.
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Summary: Blue Highways . . . a Blue Print
Review: BLUE HIGHWAYS . . . These are the 1st words of the book. And they are granted one whole page. "On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing. But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk - times neither day nor night - the old roads return to the sky some of its color. Then, in truth, they carry a mysterious cast of blue, and that's the time when the pull of the blue highway is strongest, when the open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself." I bought BH as quickly as I could after having read its review in NYT Book Review back in 1982. I bought a cofee, sat in a plush chair, cracked the binding and opened the book to this page. I read these words. I stopped, but my eyes remained fixed. I read these words again. Again. And, again. I could not turn the page. Suddenly, I was back in the early 60's when I was an engineering student with an Austin Healy. I remembered sitting at the top of a hill somewhere in the country just as the night's darkness was forced aside by the morning's early light. I read the opening paragraph again. Again. And, again. I could not turn the page. That was all I could read. It took years before I could read the book. I attempted to explain this experience to my friends but received little more than a supportive and patronizing smile. I bought copies of BH for a half-dozen friends and asked them to read the book and tell me what happened to them. Only one guy, a bother under the skin, seemed to 'understand.' I have read BH since . . . at least a half-dozen times. It pulls me back still like a . . . well, a Blue Highway. If the words in the 1st paragraph make your eyes grow glassy, silence your world, and stir your heart then buy Blue Highways. If the words didn't, then, uh . . ..
Rating:
Summary: A ROAD BOOK TO ENJOY
Review: Just finished this book and thoroughly enjoyed it.Have read several others by E.W.Teale,Steinbeck,Twain,R.T.Peterson,L.McMurtry,P.Dunne,K.Kaufmann and in my opinion this was up there with the best of them.Although I must admit, I found the first half of the book more interesting than the second.This may have been because the people in the areas were more colorful or perhaps the author was tiring a bit.Recommend it as a good read.
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