Rating: 
Summary: Not all highways are blue
Review: Some folks say the Interstate Highway System finally made it possible to travel from one coast of America to the other without seeing anything.But "Roads," Larry McMurtry's new collection of essays, part Jack Kerouac, part William Least Heat Moon, part travelogue, part memoir, offers a glimpse of places as remote as the human heart. This collection of essays is not as much about roads as restlessness. His routine is simple: McMurtry flies someplace, rents a car and drives home to lonesome Archer City, Texas. On his dawn-to-dusk superhighway sojourns, never slowing down for three-calendar diners, tourist traps or even to visit friends, he won't even turn on the radio. The journey itself is his destination. It's about going, not stopping. At a level as uncomplicated as a farm-to-market road, the highways of McMurtry's collection are merely threads binding together his diverse musings on Los Angeles, manifest destiny, Hemingway's furniture, the need for rattlesnakes, the callowness (and shallowness) of contemporary Hollywood, cowboys, young killers in the Heartland, old books, fatherhood, the yellow housepaint in Key Largo, great rivers, the Holy Tortilla, and short remembrances of several dead characters from his stories. His prose has the quality of conversation on a long, long drive: a meandering, intimate, unfettered discourse inspired by the passing landscape. But in a larger sense, "Roads" is a metaphor for the circular journey of McMurtry's life. It leads him to, from and through places where he considered roads not taken, or where his personal or literary paths crossed others, or simply where the quality of light through his windshield illuminated a memory. "Roads" can be read as a natural sequel to "Walter Benjamin": The boy who never read Hemingway or Faulkner until he went to college now takes to the open road as a man to ponder their legacies -- and his own.
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: 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: Good read but poor value
Review: The book is a nice bedside read. While McMurtry rambles around the interstates he does give us some thoughtful prose about himself and other writers when he passes through their towns. As a frequent long distance driver I concur in his appreciation for the interstate versus the blue highway. But, I do think that $25 was a bit much for this book inasmuch as its 208 pages pass very quickly and there really isn't all that much in them.
Rating: 
Summary: Off the Roads
Review: The moment McMurtry gets "on the road" his lack of passion or even interest in the roads that he traverses becomes obvious. "ROADS" is a haphazard mutt of a book: it is part memoir, part book review, and part history of America. He does not stop for anything, except the occasional burrito at a gas station or night at a Holiday Inn. Since he is not exploring, the scenes are long, usually tiring commentaries about events that have happened in the towns that he passes at seventy miles per hour. McMurtry's love for the plains occasionally shines through, but ROADS is otherwise lacking in the perfect storytelling that made him famous.
Rating:
Summary: A Nice Road AND History Book
Review: This book does a great job of thoroughly describing the history of the area around a road. For example, the author passes through a country highway and passes an old Indian reserve. He gives a rather detailed description of the preserve and the Natives who once lived there. Along the way, he also makes reference to battles and massacres that happened near the road's current location. The author also makes reference to authors and writers who lived in or near the places he travels through.
A nice read if you are into history or authors (or the author's own life, for that matter), but if you strictly want the travel narrative, this may not be the book for you.
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: strange, but wonderful
Review: This is not your normal travel book, but about 50 pages into it,i marched out into the garden, threw it in my mothers lap and announced it was time for a road trip. so the van is getting checked out and we will take off soon. this little book has a strange quality about it. it not a love song of the road, it lacks all the criteria of a "true" travel book, and somehow you can't put the damm thing down. having a roap map nearby is very helpful, authors should have to put maps in travel books! be warned, you could be throwing gear into your van and taking off too.
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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