My latest book, The Routes of Man, is now out in paperback, sporting a beautiful new cover and an improved subtitle: Travels in the Paved World. It is available at neighborhood and online bookstores, and also as a Kindle book and an audio book.
Recently the wife and I went to see “127 Hours,” Danny Boyle’s film about the real-life misadventure of mountaineer Aron Ralston. Ralston, as movieogers know, was solo hiking in a canyon in Utah when his arm got trapped beneath a boulder. In order to save his life, he had to leave his arm behind.
The separation of Ralston from his arm is a grisly, existential nightmare that I might not have chosen to see had the movie not gotten good reviews — and had I not written about outdoor adventure and death in my book, Whiteout: Lost in Aspen. My chapter, “The Chances You Take,” opens with my friend, Seth, returning home one lovely summer day to inform me that his hiking partner, the physicist Heinz Pagels, has fallen near the summit of 14,018-foot Pyramid Peak. The rescue team is assembling and he is to return in two hours; I drive him. read more
For weeks (okay, months) I’ve been meaning to link to this thought-provoking post at BLDGBLOG, written by Geoff Manaugh. It’s about ancient routes all around us – at Monticello and in Vermont, San Francisco and Australia. Great images and comments at the bottom.
Perhaps because the United States is a young country, we don’t seem to think much about our old roads. But to me they’re among the most evocative features of the American landscape. read more
Though I’m always after my wife for saving too much stuff, in fact I have the same problem. One thing that’s been particularly hard for me to get rid of is my first good camera, a compact SLR called an Olympus OM-1. My attachment to the Olympus, a device which has long since outlived its usefulness, has to do not just with the many events it has helped me capture over the years, but to its own adventures while not under my control. read more
One of my favorite photographs of a road is by Nicholas deVore III. Nicholas was one of those rare people of approximately my age or older who grew up in Aspen, Colorado, instead of immigrating there. That’s where I met him, when I was researching my book Whiteout. Nicholas was extraordinarily smart, creative, funny, libidinous, and alarming. President of his class at Aspen High, he spent many years as a photographer for National Geographic, Fortune, Life, and Geo. read more
The magazine The Week asked me for a list of my top six books about travel on roads. It’s in the current issue.
