Rating: 
Summary: A solid, enjoyable travel narrative
Review: In Blue Highways, we get to share in William Least Heat-Moon's journey across America in a trip taken about 20 years ago. The trip was brought about by the demise of his marriage and the loss of his job. In an effort to reconnect with himself and his fellow Americans, Heat-Moon embarks on a journey without a schedule or destination. He seeks to just go, meet people, and see what happens. And here is the real strength of this book: Heat-Moon does an incredible job of capturing the essence of the people he encounters along the way. By sticking to the back roads (blue highways), he meets average, ordinary people and isn't shy about striking up conversations with them. As he discovers, people are pretty much the same anywhere: most like to talk about themselves, many have an interesting story or two, and everyone's looking to connect with someone/something.
I found this book to be quite an enjoyable journey. Even though sections of it are somewhat dated, the essence of the trip still rings true. For someone looking for a humorous travel narrative similar to Bill Bryson, you may need to keep looking. While there are humorous sections to this story, this tends to be much more introspective than anything Bryson writes.
I guess ultimately this book will appeal to those of us who would love to be able just to pack up the car, fill the gas tank, and take off wherever the road may lead. I know I had my atlas next to me as I read this and traced virtually his entire journey on my map. What I wouldn't give to be able to do a 25-year follow-up and see what has changed (or what hasn't!). This is a great book to get your imagination going!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: Though I cannot, at the moment, cite a better alternative because I haven't yet read any, I am sure they do exist. At least let's hope so...
Rating:
Summary: Another smug outsider writing about the inside
Review: WLHM, although a decent writer, attempts to cross the brooding beat writers of a generation ago with Charles Kuralt. Moon fails miserably. There are some some passages of note, but mostly this work is brooding and pseudo-introspective and at times unfairly insulting to the people of whom he writes. As an English major and English teacher and a teacher of Appalachian literature, culture, history and traditions, I cannot recommend this work with any enthusiasm at all.
Rating: 
Summary: A great book!
Review: I just finished this book and it ended exactly as I thought it might and was even better than I had hoped. This book I think is for the drifter, dreamer, and story-teller in all of us. I really felt like I was in Bill's shoes and that I could envision many of the situations/scenarios that he was in. At first I thought it was going to be too drawn out. But Moon does a wonderful job of carrying you from place to place on his journey and each stop is new and exciting. If you traveled any of the places he visits, it makes it even more compelling. I love his mix of Native American insight and down to earth vision. It's the part of America you don't read about in the morning paper. I give this journey 5+ stars! Thanks Bill for taking the time to share a memorable adventure.
Rating:
Summary: Perfectly transparent narrative
Review: While the text of this book was well written, perhaps poetic at times, the reader is likely to become bored by the "plot" after 100 pages. The main character (the author) is the only character who the reader follows through the text; he is the only character the reader is allowed to see change and grow. While it is interesting enough to watch him, one might desire something more.
Rating:
Summary: Blue Highways is America
Review: I first read Least Heat-Moon's book in the mid 1980s after returning from spending two years living in the United States. There is no other book that more evokes a conception of America than this work. It is America!Since reading Least Heat-Moon, I have delved into Kerouac (On the Road) and Steinbeck (Travels with Charley) but none of these books remotely compares with the imagery of Blue Highways. Indeed, just tapping the keys for this review makes me unsettled, wishing that I too could just travel those back roads soon along America's blue highways.
Rating:
Summary: Simply a Masterpiece
Review: I expected a vivid travelogue, one with interesting historical asides and recondite facts about the places visited. I didn't expect Heat-Moon's poetic facility with language or intellectual depth, called upon occasionally but not insistently, nor the emotional arc of the book as a whole, which seems, against all odds, to have a structure, a beginning, middle and satisfying end. The author has written other books, but there is so much obvious love and care in this one that it reads like his magnum opus. Written in the 70s, it wears well even into the twenty-first century and is sure to become a classic.
Rating:
Summary: "On The Road", again?
Review: Having come from Heat-Moon's neck of the woods (Columbia, Mo.), I find it interesting that the best work of journalism to come from my alma mater is not from the much-prided "J" school, but from an English department faculty member. Heat-Moon takes an "On The Road" idea and turns it into something completely fresh and throroughly enjoyable. He has poured countless hours of research about where his travels took him, so ultimately, a reader can feel like he or she's been to the same place. That's power in writing. The journey was a noble one, and Heat-Moon blends politics, journalism, theology and history into a narrative that is at times touching, other times poignant, but always interesting. Reading this book 20 pages at a time during lunch breaks made for a great trip in my mind. And though now 20 years old, many of the things Heat-Moon touched upon are ever-pressing issues in our society today. If it's not timeless, the book is darn close. It much deserves the five stars I gave it, and it's a book I'll read again next year, this time armed with a pen so I can underline passages and make notes in the margins -- it's that useful and enjoyable!
Rating:
Summary: Old America
Review: Over a decade ago, I read this book in college. The other day, while cleaning out the cellar, I stumbled upon this book, and guess what? I'm reading it again!! William Least Heat Moon does what every person only dreams. He sees America. Not the America filled with tourist traps, but the America filled with heart. Moon weaves through morals and realities now lost in modern America through the wide variety of likeable characters he meets along his journey. This true tale is like a window to "Old America."
Rating:
Summary: Traveler's tale for your library
Review: I've been traveling off and on for the past 33 years. I've been from Regina, Saskatchewan, to Lake Powell, Utah, and from California to Casco Bay, with stops in Illinois, the San Francisco Bay Area, Denver, Colorado, and Mitchell, South Dakota. The first time I read this book, it took me places I've never been before. It's a well-written traveler's tale. William Least Heat Moon's book about his travels on the blue highways, (back roads), of the United States in the 1980s, was and still is the ultimate.
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