Posted by Jason Hussong on Thursday, January 5, 2012,
For quite some time, I purposefully – and quite successfully I may add – avoided reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and  Indonesia. Before even picking it up, I stereotyped the book as a “chick flick” on paper. And to an extent I was right. It is, as the subtitle suggests, one woman’s search for everything. But what I didn’t expect when I picked up my copy during the Borders Books close out sale was that I, as a... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Thursday, August 4, 2011,
I slid Julian Smith's book onto the shelf, just to the right of Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World. I had finished it, Crossing the Heart of Africa: An Odyssey  of Love and Adventure, and stood before my bookshelf contemplating the story. It wasn't what I had expected and thus I wasn't quite sure what I thought of the story. Crossing the Heart of Africa is Julian Smith's tale about how he crossed Africa from south to north, following in the footsteps of Englishman Ewart Grog... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Monday, April 11, 2011,
I wanted to learn more about John Muir, so while I was at the Muir Woods National Monument north of San Francisco, I picked up a copy of My First Summer in the Sierra. It seemed reasonable to think that I would learn the most about Muir from his own words, particularly tho  se he wrote in the mountains to which I would soon be driving. So, shortly after purchasing my new book, I kicked back in my hotel after a day spent exploring the streets of San Francisco, cracked the binding and began devou...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Friday, April 1, 2011,
I so easily get lost in the pages of books. I love the texture and smell of the pages. I love cracking the binding and making it mine. But sometimes a good book is missing a few pictures to help set the scene. I tried to include some as chapter covers in The Drive North, making them into a cool sketchy design with the help of a friend, but it wasn't enough in my mind. So, in order to give the reader a better look at my journey, I have included some photos here on my Facebook page. I t... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Friday, March 4, 2011,
It's not often I get overly excited about a book and want to tell everyone how much I enjoyed it. Normally that only happens with Bill Bryson books. Sure, I write about a lot of books here, but not all  of them make me want to do cartwheels. I find myself content at the end of most of the books I write about here, no longer bothering to mention those I dislike, and smile as I place them on the shelf next to the others I've finished. But, when I cracked the binding of Peter Matthiessen's The ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Monday, January 31, 2011,
Several months ago, maybe even a year, I saw Bill Bryson's African Diary on the shelf at the bookstore. I had wanted to read it for some time simply because Bill Bryson wrote it. I love his work and this was one of the outstanding books of his I had yet to read. Well, when I saw it on the shelf, I passed on purchasing it - the book  was too skinny at only fifty pages for the price. I wanted something more for my dollar and decided to go another route. But, when I was given a gift card for Ch... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Monday, September 27, 2010,
I was picking through the books on the shelf at the store looking for something good to read and I came across William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways: A Journey into America. I seemed to recall having seen the name somewhere before, but couldn't quite place it at the time. As it turns out, though, it was  on World Hum's 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of All Time list. In a word: jackpot. I zipped through Blue Highways as though I'd receive one million dollars when I finished. I loved it ...
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Posted by Jason Hussong on Thursday, September 16, 2010,
I've done a lot of travel reading lately, but haven't found anything exactly inspirational and personal at the same time. A lot of what I've read has been quite good, but just not exactly what I was looking for. And then I saw Letters to Zerky: A Father's Legacy to a Lost Son and a Road Trip Around the W orld on the shelf in the store. I had walked by it several times in the past since it's been out since 2009, but it caught my attention this time around. And I'm glad it did since it was exact...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Sunday, January 31, 2010,
Recently I was on a hike and one of the topic of conversations was travel literature. We talked about some of our favorite books, what we were reading now, and what inspired us. My hiking buddy, Kory Kilmer, mentioned the one that really caught him  was John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley. It was right at about this time that the realization struck me that I hadn't turned a page in a Steinbeck book since high school. Back when I was in school I hated to read. Well, not so much a hate to r...
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Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is a fantastic memoir of what life was like growing up in Des Moines, Iowa in the 1950s  for Bill Bryson. And as far as I'm concerned, despite a 30 year difference, it's not much different than what it was like growing up for me just a bit farther up Interstate 35 in the Twin Cities. With each page I turned I felt as though I swam a lap in my own memory. The book helped me recall so much of my own childhood that I found it quite difficult to put down. T... Continue reading ...
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