John Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley: A Journey Across America"

Linda C Beatty: I am traveling the US in an rv and
have been reading this journal of Steinbeck with great delight. I have been to many of the places he describes and plan to visit more of them in the west next year.
I have been keeping my own journal along the way, logging not just facts but impressions of places and people. Although there is little diversity in RV and state parks, I venture out into the communities around the parks to see "where I am". From TX and across the southern states and now in FL, I've only been called a Yankee once to my face, but I do feel a difference when I am in the South. It is certainly better than when Steinbeck came through. The feeling of us and them , black and white, is still here.

United States on Nov 18, 2023

Robert B Bux: appears somewhat aged with an inscription on the front page but it is okay otherwise.

United States on Nov 08, 2023

Cody F.: OK so I bought this at several peoples recommendation because I recently got an adult standard poodle. But the book isn’t really about poodles. OK well it has a little bit about poodles. It’s about America and it’s beautifully written. I absolutely love the book.

United States on Nov 06, 2023

lostlobo: Ein gefeierter, aber gesundheitlich angeschlagener Autor, der es noch einmal wissen will. Ein liebenswerter Pudel, der „Ftt“ sagen kann, als Reisebegleiter. Ein Truck mit dem gewissen Etwas. Frühe Erkenntnisse über das Unwesen der Jagd, die Umweltzerstörung, das grenzenlose Wachstum. Konfrontation mit dem Rassismus. Die Majestät der Sequoias. Avalon in Neuengland. Eine fast magische Begegnung mit zwei Kojoten der Mojave. Ein Buch der Extraklasse.

John Steinbeck – kaum ein Name steht so für amerikanische Literatur mit sozialem Gewissen wie seiner. „Von Mäusen und Menschen“ (1937) oder „Früchte des Zorns“ (1939) – beide über die Schicksale von Wanderarbeitern – legen davon Zeugnis ab. Für zweiteres Werk erhielt er 1940 den Pulitzer Preis. 1962 wurde sein Gesamtwerk mit dem Literaturnobelpreis ausgezeichnet. Im selben Jahr erschien „Travels with Charley: In Search of America“ – mein Favorit aus Steinbecks Feder.

1960, im politisch richtungsweisenden Wahljahr JFK vs. Richard Nixon, beschloss Steinbeck sich auf die Reise durch sein riesiges Heimatland zu machen, coast to coast, New York to California and back. Er hatte das Gefühl, als...

Germany on Aug 18, 2023

david canford: In 1960 John Steinback decides he wants to see what’s happening in America and whether it has changed, so with his dog Charley and a truck fitted out to live in they set off from the North East. Being Steinbeck there’s some good writing but by the time they reached the mid West I was bored and underwhelmed and put it down for a while. I’m glad I went back to it since after that it improved hugely as he went west and eventually to his youthful stomping ground in California and then Texas and the South. It seems the nation was sharply divided even then - he recounts family rows about his support for JFK, his sisters were supporting Nixon in the 1960 election. If you’re looking for another good read about America during that era, I would recommend Jan Morris’ Coast to Coast, and even though her prose can sometimes be too much I loved the way it seemed to capture what some looking back now consider America’s golden age, providing of course you were white

United Kingdom on Aug 13, 2023

kaydubkaydub: It’s the classic Steinbeck novel “Travel’s with Charley” in an e book, except this particular copy was clearly made by scanning a physical copy and then running a text recognition algorithm, with less than perfect results. The most common mistake was mistaking “tl” for the letter “d”. “Restless” becomes “resdess”, “bottles” becomes “botdes”. It’s not universal but it is frequent enough. The other mistake was new paragraphs started at random in the middle of sentences. It’s a bit distracting but not so bad as to affect overall enjoyment. For $1.50 or whatever insignificant amount I paid it’s good value.

Canada on Dec 16, 2022

Tthomas: John Steinbeck, a Nobel prize winner, decided in 1960 that he could no longer continue writing books about the country, before he went out to see the whole thing for himself. He then decided that he would complete a ten thousand mile long journey across the United States in search of rediscovering America. In order to complete this journey Steinbeck decided to build a camper van to make sure that his journey would remain comfortable and run smoothly. He named his van named Rocinante after an author that he admires. Steinbeck would have to leave the safe comfort of his home and the environment that he is used to. He was able to complete the journey with his trustee poodle Charley. They encountered several obstacles along the way but they together were able to overcome the challenges that were presented before them.
In the beginning, Steinbeck didn’t necessarily set out with the intention of publishing his journey across the United States. His original plan was to simply take notes over what he had seen and maybe write about it in the future. In the very beginning of the book, there was a little boy who used to live across the street. He wanted nothing more than to accompany...

United States on Apr 12, 2019

John P. Jones III: I first read “Travels…” in 1962. It is #15 on my list of books that I’ve read, which I commenced in that year. I’ve read a number of other books by Steinbeck, including  The Grapes of Wrath , which I’ve read twice. Figured a re-read of “Travels…” was long overdue, since my original reading proved to be the impetus to my pale imitation of Steinbeck’s trip, in August 1968. I took my VW bug, and traveled from Pittsburgh, west, through Wisconsin, and all the way to Montana, before turning south to New Mexico, then looping back home in a rush imposed by “Uncle Sam.” That trip was the commencement to some other serious wanderings during my life.

Steinbeck’s trip was much more extensive, yet in the end, attenuated also. It spanned 11 weeks, in the fall of 1960. He left his home on Long Island, NY, and traveled east and north, to Aroostook, Co. Maine, before turning west and going all the way to Seattle. Then he turned south and traveled to his childhood hometowns of Salinas and Monterey CA. Steinbeck references Thomas Wolfe’s classic  You Can't Go Home Again  several times, noting that after a certain age many of your old friends are...

United States on May 28, 2018

K N Keerthi Bhushan: This books is another example of the mesmerizing beauty and lucidity of John Steinbeck's prose.
One one hand the narrative is a little loosely chronological and on the other it is also one in which is captured a gradual and strictly sequential (and natural) opening up of the narrator's experiences, revelations, unshackling of biases and forming of new ones.
To me it is an important technical achievement of the narrative: to combine the stream of consciousness with the traditional expectations a travelogue.
It is hard to imagine that the writer set out to structure it as such for the sheer force of spontaneity masks the basic writing effort itself. Even in places where the narrator appears lost, the effort of writing is overshadowed by the honest intimidation John Steinbeck suffers at the hands of the monstrous machines of modernity.
The undercurrent of craving for freedom - probably from the unknown burden called life - becomes a metaphor of the inherent limitation of language to express fully the experience, unknown fears, hesitations, even in the hands of such a master as John Steinbeck. This tension is palpable to the extent that the reader may feel uneasy at places...

India on Jul 29, 2013

Andrew R: I first read TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY forty years ago. I loved it then and I enjoyed it even more the second time around.

I have wanted to reread this book for years, and very pleased to obtain a brand new copy of the book at a ridiculously low price. The online experience of purchasing a book of this kind, which I was unable to obtain from local used bookstores, was rewarding because I did not expect an uncirculated book when I opened the parcel.

TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY is as poignant and moving today as it was the first time I read it. Of course, when I read it the first time, I didn't think twice about the author's comments about his concerns about growing old because as far as I was concerned at the time, he was over the hill - except for his writing. My second reading brought home to me that Steinbeck was still a relatively young man when he travelled across America with Charley. His discerning eye and his candid comments about America and Americans are as fresh now as they were then.

This time, I had the good fortune to read extensive excerpts from Jay Perini's JOHN STEINBECK: A BIOGRAPHY, 1996(?), after reading CHARLEY - an excellent companion piece that...

Canada on Feb 21, 2013