Book recommendations

I don't know any full length books, but there are plenty of zines and whatnot within the STP library. It has covered most things for me. Besides that you can just Google search. If you want these for the road, staple email and put the in a folder or binder. Also know that nothing will answer your questions 100%. You have to take your studies and verify them IRL. Kinda like science.
 
I like historical stuff, early 20th century and thereabouts.
My favorite books are George Orwell's novels and essays. The Spike is a good quick read.
Jack London, who of course wrote Call of the Wild, also wrote People of the Abyss, about his exploration of homelessness in London. Since he's American it's interesting to see his horrified reactions:
"...the Carpenter, lean and hungry, his grey and ragged overcoat flapping mournfully in the breeze, swung on in a long and tireless stride which reminded me strongly of the plains wolf or coyote. Both kept their eyes upon the pavement as they walked and talked, and every now and then one or the other would stoop and pick something up, never missing the stride the while. I thought it was cigar and cigarette stumps they were collecting, and for some time took no notice. Then I did notice. From the slimy, spittle-drenched, sidewalk, they were picking up bits of orange peel, apple skin, and grape stems, and, they were eating them...They picked up stray bits of bread the size of peas, apple cores so black and dirty one would not take them to be apple cores, and these things these two men took into their mouths, and chewed them, and swallowed them; and this, between six and seven o’clock in the evening of August 20, year of our Lord 1902, in the heart of the greatest, wealthiest, and most powerful empire the world has ever seen."
 
Kerouac's On the Road was what hooked me as a young man. Also, the works of Emerson and Thoreau. Edward Abbey (for outdoor living), a lot of the punk/squat stuff in the 80s and 90s, and a load of "wildernist" lit for me.
 
Here's another essay by Orwell, trying to get arrested. Partly so he could write an article about prisons, but also because he was genuinely homeless and starving. It's pretty hilarious.
Interestingly, court records have recently been uncovered which prove this all really happened.

This trip was a failure, as the object of it was to get into prison, and I did not, in fact, get more than forty-eight hours in custody; however, I am recording it, as the procedure in the police court etc was fairly interesting.
I bought some tobacco and a "Yank Mag" against my forthcoming imprisonment, and then, as soon as the pubs opened, went and had four or five pints, topping up with a quarter bottle of whisky, which left me with twopence in hand. By the time the whisky was low in the bottle I was tolerably drunk -- more drunk than I had intended, for it happened that I had eaten nothing all day...Finally I saw two policemen coming. I pulled the whisky bottle out of my pocket and, in their sight, drank what was left...
 
Jack London - The Road
Bunch of short stories from Londons time on the rails.
 
Vagabonding by Ed Buryn.Written in the early 1970's and not all info will be applicable in 2016 but there's a lot of great writing regarding the philosophy behind travelling.
Here's the man himself reading from the book.
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This might be more on the political side, I actually haven't read this book but I just heard about it and it sounded cool enough to share even so. Ernst Junger's The Forest Passage. Has anyone read this?
 
Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son is about a proto oogle in the 70s. Also cool book American Pictures by Jacob Holdt, stayed with people he hitchhiked with all across America and wrote about them and took pictures and the result is a portrait of reality only a traveler can piece together.
 
Sister of The Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha - as told to Dr. Ben Reitman
You Can't Win by Jack Black
 
I second "You Can't Win" by Jack Black (no, not the shitty actor), great book, one of my favorites.

Also I just got finished reading Woody Guthrie's autobiography entitled "Bound For Glory," and I thought it was great.

If you wanna get real surreal with it, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" by Tom Robbins is good.
 
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yellowbrickfreeway said:
I second "You Can't Win" by Jack Black (no, not the shitty actor), great book, one of my favorites.

Also I just got finished reading Woody Guthrie's autobiography entitled "Bound For Glory," and I thought it was great.

If you wanna get real surreal with it, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" by Tom Robbins is good.
Click to expand...

Was about to recommend Tom Robbins. He had this fantastic passage about travelers toward the beginning of Jitterbug Perfume. Would quote it, but I traded it for Still Life With Woodpecker.

Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy has a lot of cowboy style wandering in it. And, of course, The Road, for your daily dose of post-catastrophe travel tales, as well as existentially horrifying quandaries about human nature.

Damn. All this book talk has me jonesing for a good read. I'm gonna go do that. Night, ya'll.
 
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