[Publib] Annotated road list

[Kathryn Knight]

Here's my annotations for the first 60-70 titles.

Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne
Shocking his stodgy colleagues at the exclusive Reform Club, enigmatic
Englishman Phileas Fogg wagers his fortune, undertaking an
extraordinary and daring enterprise to circumnavigate the globe in
eighty days. With his French valet Passepartout in tow, Verne's hero
traverses the far reaches of the earth, all the while tracked by the
intrepid Detective Fix, a bounty hunter certain he is on the trail of
a notorious bank robber.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
"Cordially hated and dreaded by all the mothers of the town because he
was idle, and lawless, vulgar, and bad - and because all their
children admired him so," Huckleberry Finn, the fourteen-year-old son
of the town drunkard, joins runaway slave Jim on an exciting journey
down the mighty Mississippi River on a raft.

Don Quixote – Miguel Cervantes
In 2002, 100 major writers from 54 countries rated Don Quixote the
world's best work of fiction. The protagonist, Alonso Quixano, is a
country gentleman who has read so many stories of chivalry that he
descends into fantasy and becomes convinced that he is a knight
errant. Together with his earthy squire Sancho Panza, the self-styled
"Don Quixote de la Mancha" sets out in search of adventure.

Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
A novel that studies the moral disintegration of a man whose obsessive
desire to possess his step-daughter destroys the lives of those around
him.  "Hum" and "Lo" engage in a parody of incest that takes them
across America. As they traverse the neon-lit landscape of filling
stations, motels, coffee shops, and highways, the novel unfolds as a
satire of billboard America, progressive-school education, and teenage
mores; a commentary on Continental-American cultural relations; but
above all as a moving love story, with Humbert captive to the cruel
caprices of his indifferent child-mistress.

The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
Three Americans drifting through post-war North Africa encounter the
limits of human existence in the form of a land and a people utterly
alien to them.

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
This novel is a modern Exodus, of America's great trek, as the hordes
of dispossessed tenant farmers from the dust bowl turn their hopes to
the promised land of California's fertile valleys.

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
The members of the Bundren family must take the body of Addie,
matriarch of the family, to the town where Addie wanted to be buried.
Along the way, we listen to each of the members on the macabre
pilgrimage, while Faulkner heaps upon them various flavors of
disaster. Contains the famous chapter completing the equation about
mothers and fish--you'll see.

Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The central story is related by Marlow, a sailor and adventurer, who
recalls his experiences as the captain of a steamboat in the Congo.
There, at a station on the edge of the jungle, he hears rumors of a
Mr. Kurtz, a remarkable, admired man who operates a trading post
located deep in the wilderness. After numerous delays, Marlow steams
up the snakelike river toward Kurtz's trading post. Along the way, his
boat is attacked by savages, and when they finally reach Kurtz's
station, Marlow is shocked to see a display of human heads, the spoils
of cannibal war….

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Galaxy-hopping Arthur Dent and galaxy tour-guide writer Ford Prefect
race to save the universe in an antic series that begins with the
Guide and goes on to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life,
the Universe & Everything, and So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

On the Road – Jack Kerouac
The classic road trip novel, this book is a thinly fictionalized
autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouac's real life friends,
lovers, and fellow travelers. Narrated by Sal Paradise, one of
Kerouac's alter-egos, On the Road is a cross-country bohemian odyssey
that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957
publication but penetrated into the deepest level of American thought
and culture.

The Inferno – Dante
Part of a three section work called The Divine Comedy (other parts
including Purgatorio and Paradiso), The Inferno is perhaps the most
famous of the three for its vivid, intense images of eternal damnation
and torture. The poem's narration begins on the eve of Good Friday,
when the pilgrim Dante awakens in a dark wood, with no memory of how
he came to be lost. After he is chased by three beasts, he appeals to
the figure of the poet Virgil, who tells pilgrim Dante that the only
way to find his way again is to follow the poet through Hell to
confront its terrifying center: Satan himself.

Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut
First published in 1973, Breakfast of Champions traces the
cross-country journey of the long-suffering sci-fi writer Kilgore
Trout, who, to his amazement, is invited to attend an arts festival in
a gritty Midwestern town. As Kilgore's picaresque adventure unfolds,
Vonnegut drops in barbs on such contemporary American maladies as war,
consumerism, racism, and pollution.

Candide – Voltaire
Like many other satires, Candide is an episodic novel whose characters
evolve little, despite harrowing experiences—except Candide, the
constitutionally naïve protagonist.  After our hero is evicted from
idyllic Westphalia for embracing Cunegonde, the Baron's daughter,
Candide is beset by one misfortune after another as he travels the
globe, learning ultimately that "we must cultivate our garden."

The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in
his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him
to take part in an adventure from which he may never return.

Orlando – Virginia Woolf
Originally published in 1928, this classic story by Virginia Woolf was
modeled on her friend Vita Sackville-West's personality. Orlando
enters the book as an Elizabethan nobleman and leaves the book three
centuries and one change of gender later as a liberated woman of the
1920s. Along the way this most rambunctious of Woolf's characters
engages in sword fights, trades barbs with 18th century wits, has a
baby, and drives a car. This is a deliriously written,
breathless-making book and a classic both of lesbian literature and
the Western canon.

The Canterbury Tales – Chaucer
The old-but-still-wonderful story about a group of pilgrims going to
Canterbury and the various tales that they relate to one another to
pass the time: that garrulous, sensible, voluptuous, wise old
feminist, the Wife of Bath, with her story based on the precept that
women's dearest wish is to rule men; the simple, generous Franklin,
with his homely interpolations and innocently egalitarian notions; the
slimy Pardoner, who begins his tale with an earthy tirade on sins to
avoid and closes with a modern-sounding commercial for his wares.
Hilarious, bawdy, melancholy, wonderful.

Rabbit, Run – John Updike
Harry Angstrom was a star basketball player in high school and that
was the best time of his life. Now in his mid-20s, his work is
unfulfilling, his marriage is moribund, and he tries to find happiness
with another woman. But happiness is more elusive than a medal, and
Harry must continue to run--from his wife, his life, and from himself,
until he reaches the end of the road and has to turn back....

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – Washington Irving
Washington Irving's classic American scare tale combines satire,
horror, and farce.  A superstitious schoolmaster, in love with a
wealthy farmer's daughter, leaves a party one gloomy night and, on the
road home, has a terrifying encounter with a headless horseman.

Paul Revere's Ride – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Longfellow's classic poem of this historic ride captures the emotions
of the period when the British militia arrived in Boston Harbor, which
led to the start of the American Revolution.
CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT ROAD CLASSICS:

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum
After a cyclone transports her to the land of Oz, Dorothy and her dog
Toto are befriended by a scarecrow, a tin man, and a lion, who
accompany her along the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City so as to
find a wizard who can help her return home to Kansas.

The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
The escapades of four animal friends who live along a river in the
English countryside: Toad, Mole, Rat, and Badger. When Mr. Toad gets a
new motor car, he gets them all in trouble.

The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
An aviator whose plane is forced down in the Sahara Desert encounters
a little prince from a small planet who relates his adventures in
seeking the secret of what is important in life.

The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
A bored young boy, Milo, drives his small electric car through a toy
tollbooth and finds himself in the Land Beyond. A journey through a
land where Milo learns the importance of words and numbers provides a
cure for his boredom.

Gentlemen of the Road: a Tale of Adventure by Michael Chabon
In the Kingdom of Aran, in the Caucasus Mountains in 950 A.D., two
adventurers wander the region, plying their trade as swords for hire,
until they become involved in a bloody coup in the medieval Jewish
empire of the Khazars as bodyguards for a fugitive prince.

Mother Road by Dorothy Garlock [Route 66 series]
Managing a Depression-era garage in Oklahoma while his friend recovers
from an animal bite, Yates finds himself falling in love with his
friend's babysitter and housekeeper, who has scandalized the town by
living with her employer.

Song of the Road by Dorothy Garlock [Route 66 series]
Returning to her childhood home in Depression-era New Mexico, pregnant
and penniless widow Marilee is distraught to learn of her father's
death and her mother's alcoholism but vows to revive the family's
motor court business.

Eureka by Jim Lehrer
Bored with his job as CEO of an insurance company in Eureka, Kansas,
and tired of his nagging wife, Otis Halstead hits the road on the eve
of his sixtieth birthday, but a terrible accident interrupts his
odyssey, leaving him a seeming vegetable trapped by the people he
tried to escape.

Find Me by Carol O'Connell
In this ninth installment of the series featuring Mallory, O'Connell
(Dead Famous) shows her unraveling as she explores a deeply personal
mystery and becomes tangled up in a larger hunt for a serial killer
along Route 66.

Crazy in Alabama by Mark Childress
The world turns upside down and everything goes a little crazy in this
tale by the author of Tender about a hot, restless summer and an
unforgettable woman who looks for salvation on the road to and in
Hollywood.

Gardenias for Breakfast by Robin Gunn
While taking her daughter Hannah on a trip across the United States to
Louisiana to obtain the blessing of her great-grandmother, Abby has
unexpected encounters with other members of her family, including her
estranged mother.

American Purgatorio by John Haskell
A man's life is turned upside down when he enters a convenience store
and loses his family--an event that will precipitate a nationwide
search and a journey into the dark recesses of a man's soul.

White Widow by Jim Lehrer
Although faithful to his wife for years, Jack T. Oliver becomes
enamored with a white widow (beautiful woman) who boards his bus one
night in the 1950s.

Handling Sin by Michael Malone
Raleigh W. Hayes is in quest of his runaway, aging, eccentric father,
his own murky family history, a chest filled with Confederate gold,
and a little peace and quiet.

Loop Group by Larry McMurtry
Anticipating the onset of her later years, Maggie leaves behind her
manipulative daughters to accompany her best friend, Connie, for one
final fling, but a series of misadventures prompts their desperate,
gun-toting journey to a Texas ranch.

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her
grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the
way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also
left.

No Man's Land by GM Ford
When a desperate hostage situation forces him into a cross-country
journey in the company of a pair of escaped convicts, Frank Corso
finds himself trailed by a collection of law enforcement agencies and
craven media personalities as he works to end an ensuing spree of
killing and mayhem.

20 Times a Lady by Karyn Bosnak
Delilah, unhappy with how many men she has had sex with, takes off on
a cross-country trip determined to find "the one" among her former
lovers. But she soon discovers that the men of her romantic past—an
inmate, a rehab patient, a dog-obsessed Amway salesman and a Muppeteer
among them—aren't exactly life-partner material.

Wakefield by Andrei Codrescu
When the Devil arrives to take his soul, Wakefield, a motivational
speaker and architecture buff, makes a bargain that would give him one
year to search for an alternative life and embarks on an odyssey that
takes him across the country.

Stupid and Contagious by Caprice Crane
A romantic comedy about two twentysomething neighbors on a mission to
find the founder of Starbucks.

Only Revolutions by Mark Danielewski
Moving back and forth in American history, a kaleidoscopic novel
follows Hailey and Sam, two wayward teenagers, as they crash New
Orleans parties, barrel up the Mississippi, head through the Badlands,
and take on other adventures.

To the White Sea by James Dickey
After Air Force gunner Muldrow is shot down over Tokyo during World
War II, he goes north to country resembling his Alaskan home where he
survives by hunting and trapping game.

Deliverance by James Dickey
Four suburban businessmen take a canoe trip along a Georgia river, an
odyssey that pits their courage against the river's raging rapids and
the most primitive human impulses of fear, lust, and murder.

Wolf Point by Edward Falco
Tom "T" Walker, Jenny, and Lester are companions in this tale of
vicarious adventure, with darkness and pain being the desired
experience. T is the voyeur. He is seeking escape from his own
suffering and does so by offering Jenny and Lester, two overtly
dangerous-looking hitchhikers, a ride.

The Reivers by William Faulkner
Boon Hogganbeck persuades Lucius Priest, 11, to borrow his
grandfather's car in 1905. Ned McCaslin, African-American, stows away
and the three are off on a heroic odyssey which ends at Miss Reba's
bordello. When Ned turns up in the night with a horse for which he has
traded the car, the action accelerates wildly and draws Miss Reba,
Boon's friend, Miss Corrie, Lucius, Ned, trainmen, and deputies into a
mad melee of smuggling a horse across country, planning a bizarre
race, and ending in jail.

Mad River Road by Joy Fielding
While an ex-con sets out to exact revenge against his former wife for
her role in his imprisonment, a woman in Florida is convinced by a
seductive stranger to quit her dead-end job in order to pursue a more
exciting life.

Society of S by Susan Hubbard
Thirteen-year-old half-vampire Ariella Montero struggles with the
realities of her condition. Ari runs away from home, embarking on a
picaresque journey to find her mother, the one person Ari believes
holds the key to her true identity. As she hitchhikes her way through
the country, Ari discovers much about herself but nearly loses her
life in the process.

Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson
After high school, Arlene Fleet left tiny Possett, AL, for Chicago,
vowing never to return. Despite pleas over the decade to come home,
Arlene reconsiders only after a sudden visit from a former classmate.
In chapters alternating between 1997 and 1985, the story of what
prompted the murder of a football hero in Arlene's hometown unfolds
tantalizingly.

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
Taylor Greer buys and old car and heads west. Along the way she
becomes the guardian of an abandoned baby girl.

Mission to America by Walter Kirn
On a mission to recruit young women for their church, Mason LaVerle
and Elias Stark leave Montana and experience the excesses of
contemporary American society in a Colorado ski town along with its
colorful inhabitants.

Nowhere is a Place by Bernice McFadden
Having struggled throughout her life for an understanding of her
identity, Sherry wonders at an uncharacteristic display of anger on
the part of her mother and digs into her family's past throughout the
course of a cross-country journey.

Cadillac Jack by Larry McMurtry
A former rodeo cowboy roams the country in his Cadillac, scouting for
antiques and falling in love.

Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Taking to the road between seasons, attractive Chicago Stars
quarterback Dean Robillard meets the beautiful and infuriating Blue
under unusual circumstances and draws on his competitive skills to
overcome her wariness of relationships.

Sideways by Rex Pickett
As best friends Miles and Jack leave Los Angeles for Santa Ynez wine
country in preparation for Jack's impending nuptials, they embark on a
raucous, weeklong road trip that allows Jack to contemplate his final
days of freedom and gives Miles--who has divorced his wife, lost his
money, and forgotten his passion for life--a chance to reevaluate his
life.

Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral by Kris Radish
Annie passes away at the youthful age of 56, leaving her high-school
friend, Katherine, responsible for organizing her traveling funeral.
Katherine receives a UPS package with Annie's favorite pair of red
high-top sneakers, which contain her ashes, and instructions to
contact four other women who played pivotal roles in her life. All of
the women either have met or heard of each other through Annie, and
all agree to fulfill her request that they fly across the country
together and disperse her ashes at places meaningful to Annie.

Lady Luck's Map of Vegas by Barbara Samuel
Forty-year-old India finds her life turned upside down by the arrival
of her flamboyant mother, Eldora, who insists that the two of them hit
the road to Las Vegas, searching for India's twin sister, Gypsy, a
reclusive artist, along the way.

Fruit of Stone by Mark Spragg
Presents the story of two men who follow the strange, fateful journey
of one woman across the state of Wyoming.

Heat Signature by Lisa Teasley
Seeking an escape from his father, a failing relationship, his job,
and a troubled best friend, Sam Brown embarks on a road trip, but he
soon discovers that he is unable to escape the memory of his mother,
who had been brutally murdered and who comes to him in dreams,
especially when he finds that her killer is about to be released from
prison.

Roads of the Heart by Christopher Tilghman
Visiting his elderly father, whose public service career has been
tainted by a sex scandal, Eric Alwin considers the impact of his own
infidelity on his career and marriage and accompanies his father on a
journey of discovery and reconciliation in the deep south.

Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
During a ninety-mile drive to her best friend's husband's funeral,
Maggie and her husband, Ira, recall and reevaluate the details of
their twenty-eight-year marriage.

Gateways: A Repairman Jack Novel by Paul F. Wilson
Following an accident that injures his father, a resident of Gateways,
a senior community near the Everglades, Jack joins with his father's
neighbor, Anya Mundy, to stop Semelee, a mysterious woman who controls
creatures of the Everglades.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
On a three-day journey through the snowbound Balkan hills, Hercule
Poirot tracks down a murderer among the passengers, with a voice in
the night as his only clue.

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!  by Douglass Adams [honestly, any of the
Hitchhiker books would work]
The fourth madcap successor to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
finds Arthur Dent and a giant robot aboard a UFO, headed for a distant
star surrounded by souvenir booths to investigate something fishy.

The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
Tom Langdon, a weary and cash-strapped journalist, is banned from
flying when a particularly thorough airport security search causes him
to lose his cool. Now, he must take the train if he has any chance of
arriving in Los Angeles in time for Christmas with his girlfriend.

Night Over Water by Ken Follett
A Nazi, Jew, filmstar, jewel thief, unfaithful housewife, and a
Russian princess are on board a Pan American flight that crash lands
off the coast of Maine during World War II.

Birds of America by Lorrie More
(Short stories "Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People" and
"What You Want to Do Fine")

Liars and Saints by Maile Meloy
The Catholic Santerre family of California navigates through a
succession of life-altering events and revelations, during which its
members are driven by jealousy, propriety, love, deceit, and tragedy.
[there's tons of travel in this book].

My House in Umbria – William Trevor
Mrs. Emily Delahunty-a mysterious and not entirely trustworthy former
madam-quietly runs a pensione in the Italian countryside and writes
romance novels while she muses on her checkered past. Then one day her
world is changed forever as the train she is riding in is blown up by
terrorists. Taken to a local hospital to recuperate, she befriends the
other survivors-an elderly English general, an American child, and a
German boy-and takes them all to convalesce at her villa, with
unforeseen results.

Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo.
Veteran novelist Merullo continues the spiritual odyssey he began in
Golfing with God (2005). Otto Ringling, a successful New York editor
and contented family man, has been in a slump ever since his parents
were killed in an automobile accident. To settle the estate, he and
his loopy sister, Cecilia, must drive to the family homestead in North
Dakota. Then Cecilia tells him she's giving her half of the farm to
her guru, the maroon-robed Volya Rinpoche, and that she wants Otto to
drive him there. A grumbling Otto reluctantly agrees, mapping out a
route that will take them along some of the Midwest's most charming
backroads, and treating the rotund monk to a taste of American fun,
including a tour of the Hershey chocolate factory and a round of
miniature golf. Volya proves to be such a jovial and serene companion
that Otto soon regains not only his peace of mind but also his joie de
vivre. The skillful Merullo, using the lightest of touches, slowly
turns this low-key comedy into a moving story of spiritual awakening.

The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty
Working as a quality control inspector at a toy factory in Rhode
Island, friendless alcoholic Smithy Ide considers himself a loser
until a tragic event prompts him to set off on an epic cross-country
bicycle journey.

Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey
When five million bucks in a suitcase is dropped into the trunk of the
wrong car, a whole convoy of homicidal wackos follows in hot pursuit,
with a stop in Miami to take in the last game of the Series.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
An angel has resurrected Levi bar Alpheus, known as Biff, to tell this
story of his life with Joshua, better known to the modern world as
Jesus Christ. As youths, they travel to the East in search of the wise
men who gave gifts to Joshua at his birth, because the young man has a
problem: he knows he's the Messiah, but he doesn't know what to do
about it. Along the way, he and Biff come in contact with the
spirituality of the East, along with a smattering of martial arts,
strange poisons, abominable snowmen, and more.

Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire
The sequel to Wicked: Parallel flashbacks mix with subsequent action
to describe the boyhood adventures of Liir, probable son of Elphaba,
the Wicked Witch of the West.  Follow his travels with Dorothy Gale
and her nonhuman companions, his quest for his missing childhood
friend Nor as well as Elphaba's notorious book of spells, and his time
spent in the Emerald City's Home Guard defense force and—aloft on
Elphaba's flying broomstick—his struggle with the forces of both
disorder and incumbency.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman
In the quiet English hamlet of Wall, Tristran Thorn embarks on a
remarkable journey through the world of Faerie to recover a fallen
star for his lover, the hauntingly beautiful Victoria Forester.

Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem
Trying to avoid his day-to-day struggles and unable to remember his
life before nuclear war, Chaos attempts to live as one of the mutated
survivors until he is told that the bombs never fell and sets off on a
journey for the truth.
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins
Champion hitchhiker Sissy Hankshaw, braless and free, makes her way
across the confused and paranoid America of the 1970s, gathering
knowledge and experience, friends and suitors, and all sorts of
unusual acquaintances.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
A wounded Confederate soldier walks 300 miles home through the Blue
Ridge Mountains, hoping the woman he loved four years ago still waits
for him.
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
A young cowboy rides south of the border to Mexico on horseback
several times, meeting life-changing events at every turn.