A review by glennab28
Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck

4.0

as hard as it was for me to picture steinbeck with a poodle.. he eventually won me over. although as a hefty chunk of this book is devoted to musings on charley's inner workings, i can see how his thoughts would strike non-'dog people' as odd. steinbeck applies his usual straightforward yet poignant style to describe his drive across america in 1960. it's perhaps even more interesting to read now, some 50+ years later as a way to see what's changed, what's stayed the same and what became of his predictions for the future of the country. as a side note, steinbeck also possesses that rare gift of being able to be self-effacing even as he describes the more impressive aspects of his life (he was at this point, of course, a rather well-known author and quite well traveled) which makes the small insights into his own life seem fascinating rather than pretentious.