A review by jakekilroy
Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck

5.0

This is the road book I've always wanted from literature. It's open, sincere, charming, and goofy, all with a level mind at the wheel, unpacking America. It's also bewilderingly timeless, somehow as relevant today, 60+ years later, as it was then a first-hand account of "the times." From the die-out of mom and pop shops to the unjustly binary of political ferocity, what he has to explore and dissect seems to be a mass of ongoing themes found in today's world. His musings on every topic that springs to mind seems routinely applicable to all that we want from the modern day, from each other, from our country, from the universe at large. Steinbeck can seemingly meet anyone where they're at as who they are, as easy with outdoorsmen as he is with study-bound scholars. He just wants to know the world, and perhaps his place and America's place within it, respectively. It's an odyssey to be sure, one man seeking out answers as truly as he can, with his truck, his pen, and his dog.