Rating: 
Summary: Worth Reading
Review: If you enjoy road trips, and you enjoy our national highway system we have in the United States, and you have spent anytime on them, you will enjoy this book. Larry McMurtry has a drier than sand dust in the Sahara Desert sense of humor, but it is there and if you like sarcasm, you will dig this book. Larry spends time on many highways and interstates and tells it like he sees it, I love the fact he is so honest in this work. He talks about Missouri like it should be talked about, which is to not say much at all. His comparisons of Minnesota cornfields and Key Largo are unique to him alone. This book is a great travel companion, but it is not going to set the world on fire. But, I do not think the author had that in mind when he wrote it anyway. An area that the author fully succeeds in is the weaving into his journeys the stories of various authors from whatever geographical region he happens to be traversing. Good work, solid B- Joseph Dworak
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting.
Review: In "Roads", Mr. Larry McMurtry travels the Interstate Highways System of the USA. Along the way, he comments on certain places and tells of his adventures. He also links history to the places he visits or passes by. I found it interesting, then again I'm what they call a "Road Geek" ;) . You don't have to enjoy roads and highways to enjoy Mr. McMurtry's book, however.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting.
Review: In "Roads", Mr. Larry McMurtry travels the Interstate Highways System of the USA. Along the way, he comments on certain places and tells of his adventures. He also links history to the places he visits or passes by. I found it interesting, then again I'm what they call a "Road Geek" ;) . You don't have to enjoy roads and highways to enjoy Mr. McMurtry's book, however.
Rating:
Summary: Roads, roads, and more roads.
Review: Larry McMurtry's book Roads is perfectly titled. His book is a nine month adventure of the wonderful highways and byways of the United States. He takes us through almost the entire U.S. of A. All the while throwing in little interesting tid bits here and there. Each place he visits he knows of at least one famous author from the town. He has a vast knowledge of towns, perhaps because he has visited each one multiple times. However he does, his travels take you on a peaceful journey, for the most part, from town to town. He also takes the time to mention many of the museums you could visit if you followed the paths of Larry McMurtry, many of which sound intersting enough to pay a visit. The book has an overall good and peaceful feel to it. A man on his journey through the U.S. with nothing but his rental car, a TIME magazine, and the open road all equal to a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Road to Nowhere.
Review: Northern Michigan is the Maine of the midwest. Larry McMurtry prefers broad well-traveled roads to the blue lines favored by Annie Proulx and William Least Heat-Moon. McMurtry likes to cite earlier travel writers. The Pacific Northwest is determinedly downscale. Going to L.A. is enjoyable because of the confusion. Between Ontario and Barstow is Victorville, famous as the Home of the Western, site of the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum. Route 40 is now essentially a truck road. A favorite place of the author's is Key Largo. He find Miami heavy work. He takes us to Hemingway's house in Key West. He does not like the furniture, it has a night club feel, and the library is improbable. Maybe the nondescript books were bought to fill out the shelves. The author had heart surgery in December, 1991, and it was a sort of death. Places for him now have a before and after feel to them by association to the chronological events of his life. In Washington McMurtry had been shocked by the desperate ambition of the social, the journalistic, elite. McMurtry is funny. The research triangle is home to the yuppie redneck. He calls the government workers inching their way home to Fairfax, Vienna, and Falls Church the ant people. For a brief time in his childhood the author experienced travel as a slow activity. He does not really care about the make or the model of the car, but he does love driving. McMurtry has looked at many places quickly, his father looked at one place deeply. Tour the USA with a Chevrolet is an advertising slogan from the past and a kind of unconscious command to consider a tour of the USA in the company of Larry McMurtry. In the course of such a tour you will learn or relearn points about geography and roads and, more importantly, points about book writers and booksellers of particular interest to anyone who reads deeply and widely. For example, Seattle is the reason to celebrate Raymond Carver and Theodore Roethke. Like the author's description of Clancy Sigal's GOING AWAY he gets the right amount of history and feeling on a single page.
Rating: 
Summary: Traveling with Larry McMurtry Can be a Pleasant Ride!
Review: So now we know we're traveling interstate highways and getting personal observations on whatever appears to strike the fancy of Larry McMurtry. Great! Why not listen? We have another opportunity to learn about this complex man of letters as we ride along with him and listen to his views on sights and scenes and absorb his accounts of past historic events in certain sections of the country's West and South. Enjoyable and interesting read. And since I've traveled many of these same highways I could happily recall their varied sights as I shared the ride.
Evelyn Horan - teacher/counselor/author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl Books One - Three
Rating: 
Summary: Oh, please
Review: The book has an interesting premise, ie the author's thoughts while roaring along selected interstate highways. And, it has its moments, but not nearly enough to justify your spending time reading it. McMurtry should be ashamed at writing what is so clearly a shallow book to make a few dollars based on his name. Reader beware. You will be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Larry Drives and Writes About It
Review: This is an interesting book for what it is -- a long essay about driving on some of America's major interstate highways. The above description doesn't sound exciting, and the book isn't. But it is interesting in a reflective and anecdotal way. Larry McMurtry wrote about engaging in one of his passions -- long drives across America on our big roads. His purpose was to recapture some of his nostalgia for moving on roads that age and a recent major operation had whittled away. The result is this slim book about Larry driving and thinking and reflecting on a few places and prior motoring experiences that spring to mind as he mostly hurtles (except around LA and a few other major congestion points) along American concrete and asphalt -- at ten miles over the posted speed limit. This is not a Bill Bryson style travel book. McMurtry rarely stops and almost never sees off road attractions or engages in explorative conversations with interesting locals. He drives. And reflects. And writes about it. The book does contain some interesting recollections as well as historical and place tidbits. Many of his digressions concern authors whom he knows or admires or has opinions about. These reflections coincide with travel through places associated these writers, so we get McMurtry's thoughts on Hemmingway while he travels through Idaho -- the state of that author's suicide. What makes this work is McMurtry's well honed way with the English language. The writing is simple and direct and engaging. I imagine a book like this in which almost nothing happens would be a colossal bore in the hands of many other published authors. McMurtry has the skill and sincerity to turn this meditative exploration into a worthwhile read if not a page-turner.
Rating:
Summary: Larry Drives and Writes About It
Review: This is an interesting book for what it is -- a long essay about driving on some of America's major interstate highways. The above description doesn't sound exciting, and the book isn't. But it is interesting in a reflective and anecdotal way. Larry McMurtry wrote about engaging in one of his passions -- long drives across America on our big roads. His purpose was to recapture some of his nostalgia for moving on roads that age and a recent major operation had whittled away. The result is this slim book about Larry driving and thinking and reflecting on a few places and prior motoring experiences that spring to mind as he mostly hurtles (except around LA and a few other major congestion points) along American concrete and asphalt -- at ten miles over the posted speed limit. This is not a Bill Bryson style travel book. McMurtry rarely stops and almost never sees off road attractions or engages in explorative conversations with interesting locals. He drives. And reflects. And writes about it. The book does contain some interesting recollections as well as historical and place tidbits. Many of his digressions concern authors whom he knows or admires or has opinions about. These reflections coincide with travel through places associated these writers, so we get McMurtry's thoughts on Hemmingway while he travels through Idaho -- the state of that author's suicide. What makes this work is McMurtry's well honed way with the English language. The writing is simple and direct and engaging. I imagine a book like this in which almost nothing happens would be a colossal bore in the hands of many other published authors. McMurtry has the skill and sincerity to turn this meditative exploration into a worthwhile read if not a page-turner.
Rating:
Summary: something like deja vu
Review: This rather short book is subtitled "Driving America's Great Highways" and that is important to remember. It isn't so much of a travel book as a "thoughts on traveling" book. The author starts with a trip from Duluth to his home in Northern Texas and he does this in two days with time to spare. In other words, no time to stop and look around. However, there is time to reflect on past experiences associated with various places he passes. That is the interesting aspect of the book. The author, Larry McMurtry had read a lot of books, known a lot of people, and had a lot of experiences. We enjoy just a smattering of them in this book. There are some helpful tips here and there. For example, I am happy that we'll be traveling through Kansas City next week on a Sunday; McMurtry makes it sound overly challenging just about any other time of the week. However, the observations far outweigh the information. Still, the author's observations are worth our time. The author concludes his book with a last trip from Seattle to Omaha. I had started this book the week before but I'd only gotten a few pages into it. A long trip from our home on the Western border of North Dakota to a hockey camp in Grand Forks on the Eastern border of the state gave me an opportunity to do some reading. Thus I took along this book, my 11 year old hockey player and his 16 year old sister who did most of the driving while I read. Meanwhile, McMurtry's trip from Seattle has led him to observe that "...I realized that I had found paradise. For connoisseurs of prairie travel, US 2 is the perfect road-the road into the spacious heart of the plains." What an experience! Here I'd read of all his travels out east, out west and elsewhere and the book ends with an ode to the very road I'd been traveling on while reading it. What's more, I was reading this part while on the very stretch that he was writing about. Well, I obviously have a high praise for this book as a result of that! I sobered myself up to rate it a 4 instead of the tempting 5. For the record, my 16 year old says that McMurtry's comments about US 2 are evidence that he's nuts. I, on the other hand, came to appreciate why I drive 300-400 miles in state to attend meetings. Back home in Iowa (where I grew up), if it was over 125 miles away then it must not be that important. This book reminds me of McMurtry's "Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen". That, too, was a book of observations centered around general topics. This is a good writer to converse with even if he is doing all the talking.
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