Book recommendations
- Thread starter rdy2leave
- Start date
Down and Out in Paris & London. Orwell.
The First Third. Neal Cassady.
Naked Lunch. WS Burroughs.
Mustbenice
New member
Tracks.
Such a good book.
Such a good book.
RobHASboots
New member
That author also wrote two follow-up books.
Another good one is 'Travels With Lizbeth'. It is very real.
(Different author)
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RobHASboots
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JOE HILL
A
AlwaysLost
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Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Have spacesuit will Travel
cherryb0mb
New member
Evasion
not to piss on your opinions, but while the evasion book is well written, i don't consider it to be an accurate representation of hobo culture. it's highly romanticized, and the guy that wrote it is definitely a vegan fascist ("former vegans should be outed online") and super misogynist ("the best scam i ever invented was a girlfriend"). also, the back cover is particularly offensive to homeless people.
so yeah, not something i would tell people they should emulate.
i feel like i should also point out that i knew the author personally for quite a few years, even before the book was published.
cherryb0mb
New member
Did you not like the guy?
So first off I have to apologize because it's been five years since you asked this question and somehow I totally missed it.
To answer your question though... I mean... yeah I liked him fine I guess. The thing was at the time, I was a super green newbie traveler when the whole evasion thing kind of came out. So, like most people, I was just sold on the "you can be a dirty kid and live for free, and every day will be an adventure" vibe, which does not line up with the reality of being homeless and there is a lot of really problematic things about it that weren't apparent to me at that time.
We hung out several times, both before and after the book was published, because I'd been given a copy of the evasion zine and We just happened to actually be squatting the San Diego College campus at the same time.
I'd say for about 10 years after the book came out, we still met up on occasion. And, you know, we had a good time we'd hang out for like a night or two and then another couple years would go by before we'd see each other again. And that's just kind of the way it went.
As the years went on though, it really did become apparent like how much of a vegan fascist his opinions were and definitely showed some disgustingly misogynist views at times.
I really do think it was a mistake for crimethinc to publish that book because it really put a weird perspective on what anarchism should be and the thing is, the author of the evasion book was never anarchist, and he never claimed to be anarchist.
Yet here we are with this really popular book printed by a pretty popular anarchist book company talking about how if you're not having fun youre not doing homelessness 'right' or whatever (a quote on the back cover of the book).
I mean, there's a reason why you can't find that book in their catalog anymore. I'm sure it's a part of their past that they kind of regret and just want to pretend it never happened.
anyway my personal opinion about him was just the vegan fascism thing just really bothered me (i.e. 'exposing' former vegans in an online 'list' and other such nonsense) and I just don't think he was like, a real traveler. I think he was just a regular dude that like had a bunch of shoplifting scams and liked to travel around, but he wasn't really anything like the community he was being put up on a pedestal to represent.
He also made a ton of claims in the book about being "militantly unemployed" yet the only reason that was possible was mostly because of the women that were supporting him. This is where the "The best scam I ever invented was a girlfriend." quote comes into play, and yes, he said it to me in person several times and always seemed unusually pleased with himself after announcing it. Like he was some kind of evil mastermind for basically doing what scumbag dudes have been doing to women for ages.
So yeah, that's my opinion of the person. Ultimately a pretty douchey dude that got briefly famous because he pretty much vastly over glorified the traveler lifestyle.
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laughingman
New member
Lots of fantastic book suggestions here. Ive had to wright a few down. For the more romantic philosophical reader, I liked "My Side of the Mountain" growing up, and "Becoming Animal" is also good if a little silly. For more mechanical information "The Complete Walker" Is a phone book of outdoor gear and experience and how too-s from 60 ish years equipment. Ive also heard of "Home is Elsewhere" but I'm still looking for a copy of that one. If you want a good book of travel stories "Spokesong" is also fairly tight and entertaining.
MetalBryan
Well-known member
When I was living in SF in 2009 there was an article in a local free paper about an epidemic of homeless men living with their girlfriends as a solution to homelessness.