Rating: 
Summary: It was hard to lay down. Wonderful book.
Review: My family lived neighbors to Brian for 5 years and he and our daughter have remained good friends since that time. To read about his bicycling experiences, as well as some of his personal struggles, make this a highly enjoyable book full of personal insight. Good for you Brian!
Rating:
Summary: Accissible, Insightful, funny, and aching with endurance
Review: Newhouse writes of the cross country journey with accessible english and features insights into some of the basic needs of spirituality, romance/love, and friendship. Occasionally the book is laugh out loud funny and at other times, the writing inspires calm, stilling reflection. FInally, the book allows folks to share in a ride of their life across dramatic geography of our country.
Rating:
Summary: Rich, satisfying, joyful banquet for the soul
Review: Right up front I need to tell you that I'm Brian's older male cousin who grew up near him on another farm just down the gravel road from the Newhouse turkey farm. If I need to make the point, a relative's review would be welcomed like a pulsating nose zit on prom night, so with that disclaimer aside, I feel entitled and distanced by time and baser style to offer my own observations. As I howled and slapped my way through A Crossing in one sensuous sitting, I had the extraordinarily delicious advantage of directly recalling the soft scent of Ivory soap wafting from his gentle family members around their bountiful dinner table, contrasting in my olfactory memory with the sharp odor of watered-down blood and feather remnants that were drying on the the killing floor of their turkey processing building, just as Brian describes.Brian's carefully drawn Rockwellian images of his life with his original family on their farm resonated deeply within my own experience in coming of age within our wholesome and intertwined nuclear families vis-a-vis the shadow and the sunshine of the neighboring religious communities in which we were nurtured. That there would be conflict with his father over genuine fervently held fundamentalist beliefs was inevitable. That father and son would struggle to bridge a chasm of the hearts each in their own way, makes for an engaging tale. If only the sleek to slogging bicycle trip spanning the entire North American continent were just a metaphor, but that gutsy parallel feat adds sinew and grit to undergird and propel a complicated simple story. Throw in a montage of engaging characters and challenges along the road less traveled by pedal power, while trying to get a fix on the poor young sap's long-distance love life, and I offer every adult child and their parents, non-relatives included, a hilarious and sobering brisk glimpse into an artful attempt to live a rich life with extraordinary talent, passion, sensitivity and integrity.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Read
Review: This book is a great combination of adventure and the author's own personal journey across America. It was a prompt for me to go out there and do a bit of cycle touring myself. I am hoping that he will write a second book to find out how his personal story ends.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written & enjoyable story, but a weak cycling book.
Review: This fellow is a good writer and I enjoyed the book, but for the wrong reasons. I thought is was a book about cycling but that is just the excuse to tell Brian's personal story. Don't expect to find much information about practical touring issues, there are other books that do that better. Still, Brian deals with many father/son, family religious issues many of us can relate to. If that's what your looking for you won't be disappointed. If your looking for lots of cycling experiences, look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: A very warm and sincere account of a unique journey.
Review: This story touched me in a way that nothing else has for a very long time. Extremely honest and sincere, funny and heart-warming, I read it avariciously. Having traveled for years myself I found it inspired me to continue doing so. A great account of the pain,satisfaction and revelation that comes with journeys of this kind.
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