Find Your Way Home--Bestselling Sat Navs
Plan ahead and avoid traffic jams with one of our bestselling sat navs from top brands including TomTom and Garmin. We also stock a great range of up-to-date and fully-routable maps for your device, including popular destinations such as France, Portugal, North America and Scotland.
| ||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Review
an action packed and entertaining tale... (19 Magazine )
it is her well-developed sense of the ridiculous which makes her adventures so entertaining. (TODAY )
You might not let your daughter do it. But then again, if she could produce such an entertaining book as this, you just might. (GUARDIAN )
it is her well-developed sense of the ridiculous which makes her adventures so entertaining. (TODAY )
You might not let your daughter do it. But then again, if she could produce such an entertaining book as this, you just might. (GUARDIAN )
Book Description
* A highly entertaining memoir of an improbable journey, revealing the United States as it is rarely seen - from the seat of a bicycle
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
Two days before I was to leave for America, my father handed me an article which he had thoughtfully cut out of the London Evening Standard: Murder Toll in U.S. Hits 24,000 Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Two days before I was to leave for America, my father handed me an article which he had thoughtfully cut out of the London Evening Standard: Murder Toll in U.S. Hits 24,000 Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Desipte being billed as "cycling across the usa" over half the book covers Hawaii. Of the rest, it seems as though it is mostly complaints about the landscape being desert or cornfields.
Added to this are the repetitive accounts of guns, murders, rapes and shootings making this a rather dull book.
Added to this are the repetitive accounts of guns, murders, rapes and shootings making this a rather dull book.
Format:Paperback
Josie Dew's books about her travels around the world on her bicycle remind me a little of Dervla Murphy's narratives, but Dew wears her politics a bit more lightly than Murphy. Traveling slowly and in the open allows the cyclist to observe social conditions at close range, while the long stretches of road leave plenty of time to ponder what it all means.
In Travels in a Strange State, Dew flies into Oakland and sets out to cycle down the coast into Mexico. After a few days in the Bay Area, she considers traveling up the coast into Alaska instead. Eventually she heads south, stops in Los Angeles for a few weeks, then impulsively decides to fly to Hawaii. This turns out to be the best decision of the trip, because she falls in love with Hawaii.
In fact, by the time we're halfway through the book, she's still in Hawaii, the smallest state in the union. She still has the rest of the country to get to if she's going to write about traveling across the States.
She finally makes her way back to Los Angeles and from there it's on to Las Vegas. If you've ever driven from L.A. to Las Vegas, you know what a desolate stretch it is. I can't imagine bicycling it, but Josie does it, in 100 degree temperatures and air so dry she has to stop regularly to tend to nosebleeds.
From Las Vegas, she charges on through Utah, Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri. Although this takes weeks of actual time, it goes pretty fast in the book. One stretch of mid-western highway is much like another, as anyone who's driven cross country knows. It isn't until Dew stops in Illinois to meet up with her mother who has flown in from England, that the narrative picks up the pace again.
Staying with American relatives allows Dew to see a more middle class side of America than she normally gets to meet on the road. Bicycling along open highway brings her into contact with any number of homeless people, truckers, hitchhikers, and youth hostelers from other countries. The suburbs of Illinois give her a different perspective.
Josie Dew writes about the people she meets and the sights she sees, and she shares a bit of the history of the places she finds herself. Listening to the radio at night as she falls asleep in her tent adds to her collection of local color.
I've read many travel narratives of exotic lands I will probably never see, but reading Dew's account of her travels in the country I've spent most of my life in gave me a look at America from an unusual and not very attractive angle. It was a little like looking in a three-way mirror and finding out what you look like from the back. Yes, your butt is that big.
In Travels in a Strange State, Dew flies into Oakland and sets out to cycle down the coast into Mexico. After a few days in the Bay Area, she considers traveling up the coast into Alaska instead. Eventually she heads south, stops in Los Angeles for a few weeks, then impulsively decides to fly to Hawaii. This turns out to be the best decision of the trip, because she falls in love with Hawaii.
In fact, by the time we're halfway through the book, she's still in Hawaii, the smallest state in the union. She still has the rest of the country to get to if she's going to write about traveling across the States.
She finally makes her way back to Los Angeles and from there it's on to Las Vegas. If you've ever driven from L.A. to Las Vegas, you know what a desolate stretch it is. I can't imagine bicycling it, but Josie does it, in 100 degree temperatures and air so dry she has to stop regularly to tend to nosebleeds.
From Las Vegas, she charges on through Utah, Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri. Although this takes weeks of actual time, it goes pretty fast in the book. One stretch of mid-western highway is much like another, as anyone who's driven cross country knows. It isn't until Dew stops in Illinois to meet up with her mother who has flown in from England, that the narrative picks up the pace again.
Staying with American relatives allows Dew to see a more middle class side of America than she normally gets to meet on the road. Bicycling along open highway brings her into contact with any number of homeless people, truckers, hitchhikers, and youth hostelers from other countries. The suburbs of Illinois give her a different perspective.
Josie Dew writes about the people she meets and the sights she sees, and she shares a bit of the history of the places she finds herself. Listening to the radio at night as she falls asleep in her tent adds to her collection of local color.
I've read many travel narratives of exotic lands I will probably never see, but reading Dew's account of her travels in the country I've spent most of my life in gave me a look at America from an unusual and not very attractive angle. It was a little like looking in a three-way mirror and finding out what you look like from the back. Yes, your butt is that big.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I enjoy Josie Dew books and this one was no exception until we reached the Hawiian Islands. A third of the book was spent visiting each island. I would have oreferred more time written on the American mainland.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Beautifully ambiguous title
I'm always in awe of people who write books, and some of them are worth reading. This is one of them, as are all of Josie's books. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Donald
Travelling in an area I know so well !
This a book which is very readable,easy to put down and then pick up again where you left off.'Josie Dew' being a well traveled young lady makes one feel confident she can handle... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Helen Lore Zetter
Still pedaling
Josie Dew's welcome second book of her exploits touring by bicycle. Whilst her first was centred on Europe this cover the USA. Read more
Published on 23 April 2003
She's still travelling, but it takes more courage.
Following on from the delightful, "Wind in my Wheels" JD is travelling in the USA. Although her effervescent character still shines through, the bad experiences in... Read more
Published on 8 Aug 1999
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
