The magazine The Week asked me for a list of my top six books about travel on roads. It’s in the current issue.

A reader on my Facebook page, on hearing of my new book, asked simply, “Where did you get the idea?” I thought about trying to answer, but the space for replying is pretty small. But I give it a stab in the intro to The Routes of Man. read more

A lot of us work to music. I used to play music to help get me get going, to start the flow — mostly music without words, and especially guitar or piano. Once I got involved in the writing, the music would fade from consciousness (but maybe stay in subconsciousness). I’d know it worked when I stop for a break and notice I’d gotten to the end of the cassette or CD or playlist. read more

The car was feeling sluggish as I drove my son to school last Monday morning. Slow to back out of the driveway, slow to accelerate. Of course it was cold outside, and I myself am slow to accelerate on Mondays, so for a minute or two I thought maybe it was just me. But finally I pulled over and put it in PARK: “Check the tires on your side, will you?” I asked my son.

Sure enough, we had a flat.

I don’t know about you, but having a flat tire makes me feel like a loser. There go all my neighbors, shooting to work in business attire, and here am I for all to see, working the jack and the tire iron in my sweatshirt and white socks and Crocs. A jogger was the only person to stop. “The week can only get better from here,” he assured me. I hear you, brother. read more

My new book is about roads — roads as a powerful force that change the world, including the people on them. I traveled six transformative roads, in six countries, with people to whom they mean something.

Meanwhile, I tried hard not to think about the one piece of road I own — our driveway. It was in terrible shape. Already bad when my wife and I bought our house, some 15 years ago, it had only gotten worse. It’s a short driveway, maybe 25 feet long, paved with asphalt. The asphalt long ago started breaking into pieces. It had two distinct channels, where cars’ tires passed over it, and toward the bottom, close to the garage door, indentations where the previous owner’s van must have sat when it wasn’t in the garage. I picture the van there on hot days, indenting the asphalt. Shoveling snow from the driveway was a kind of nightmare, as every few inches the snow shovel would snag on something loose. read more

In past years I’ve had the pleasure of participating in The Moth, a live storytelling series based here in New York. Last year podcasts from The Moth became a big hit on iTunes. This week one of mine, a untold story from my Newjack research that I call “All Prisoners Lie,” is featured. (Thanks, Moth people!) Take a listen there, or here on my website. read more

Next Monday to Friday, February 8 to 12, I’ll be guest blogging for Powells, the amazing book store in Portland, Oregon. So visit me at powells.com, or check back here, where the posts will also appear, or just subscribe to my RSS feed.

Recently a meeting was held in my neighborhood of Riverdale, New York, about where to put a bike path. Not just any bike path: this will be the local link in a bicycle route that is envisioned to link Albany, New York (also on the Hudson River, some 140 miles north) with Battery Park, at the southern tip of Manhattan. The project is known as the Hudson River Greenway, and it has been in the works since the early 1990s. read more