An Evening of Music Inspired by Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon - A Masterpiece of American Travel Writing

Decades before #vanlife would trend, William Least Heat-Moon responded to upheaval in his life by hitting the road in a 1975 Ford Econoline and chronicling the journey. (“A man who couldn’t make things go right could at least go.”) Without a destination, Least Heat-Moon traveled the country on America’s “blue highways”— rural, two-lane roads so-called because of their color in the road atlas. Part memoir and part travelogue, Blue Highways is an exploration of self and community, an enduring reminder that a country isn’t just a place — it’s people.

“Though the events take place more than 40 years ago, the book reads like a search for what currently ails us, because what ailed us then ails us now.” —New York Times

Heads up: Blue Highways travels deep into many rural parts of America in the politically charged post-Vietnam era of the late-1970s, capturing dialects, attitudes, and customs — warts and all.

Check it out at Seattle Public Library. Please consider buying your Bushwick choices with their local bookstore partner, Third Place Books.