Recommend good reads........

[BHW]

I've read "Long Way 'Round" and enjoyed it, liked the DVD as well. I know Neil Peart has a book out, bu I've not heard much good about it. Looking through the local bookstore, there's not much "reading" material on rides and adventures. What should I be looking for? I've seen the Peter Egan "Leanings" books, but aren't those just re-printed articles from the magazine? Suggest a good bike related book!

[Ant]

Jupiters Travels by Ted Simon... Around the world on a Triumph Tiger (if I remember rightly) in 1972. Awesome read and amazing adventure story in a time when it wasn't necessarily "cool" to travel like it is now.

Edit to add: I've not read any of his other books but my Dad has and said that they're very good as well.

[Motocentaur]

I have read and highly recommend these:

Melissa Pierson - The Perfect Vehicle
Mark "Tiger" Edmonds - Longrider,
"                            " - The Ghosts of Scootertrash Past
John Bealby - Running with the Moon
Allen Noren - Storm
Patrick Symes - Chasing Che
Notch Miyake - Purple Mountains
Andre Carlstein - Odyssey to Ushuaia
Ted Bishop - Riding with Rilke

[1moreroad]

The Places in Between -- Rory something or other.  No motorcycles but the guy walked across Afghanistan in 2002!  Good adventure travel read.

[kam]

I have read and highly recommend these:

Melissa Pierson - The Perfect Vehicle
Mark "Tiger" Edmonds - Longrider,
"                            " - The Ghosts of Scootertrash Past
John Bealby - Running with the Moon
Allen Noren - Storm
Patrick Symes - Chasing Che
Notch Miyake - Purple Mountains
Andre Carlstein - Odyssey to Ushuaia
Ted Bishop - Riding with Rilke

+1 on The Perfect Vehicle and Odyssey to Ushuaia.

"One Man Caravan" by Fulton jr.
"Motorcycle Diaries" by Che Gevarra

[DucDave]

Already a thread with some great recommendations
http://www.sport-touring.net/forums/index.php/topic,10329.0.html


Oh, OK....
My Short Wanderlust book list...

Travels with Charlie: In Search of America        
John Steinbeck
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780140053203&itm=1

Blue Highways          
William Heat Moon
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780316353298&itm=1

The Long Way Around:Chasing Shadows Across the World (Book or Movie)      
Charley Boorman, Robert Uhlig

The Motorcycle Diaries: A Latin American Diary    
Ernest Che Guevara
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781876175702&itm=2

Wow...gonna keep checking here for new books to buy!!!

 

[DucDave]

I've read "Long Way 'Round" and enjoyed it, liked the DVD as well. I know Neil Peart has a book out, bu I've not heard much good about it. Looking through the local bookstore, there's not much "reading" material on rides and adventures. What should I be looking for? I've seen the Peter Egan "Leanings" books, but aren't those just re-printed articles from the magazine? Suggest a good bike related book!

Yo....lots of selection here:

http://www.whitehorsepress.com/

Dave

[steve.ski]

Under and Alone. Story about a US Marshal that infiltrates and eventually becomes a full-patch member of the Mongols. I read it a few months ago, and it's been passed between nearly every member of my family. It's really well written with plenty of dialogue and less of the blow-by-blow in Lavigne's books:

http://www.amazon.com/Under-Alone-Undercover-Infiltrated-Motorcycle/dp/1400060842

[ctfz1]

Any On Any Sunday DVDs.  Any Isle of Man, particularly an 04? following a yank there for the race.  Faster.   WHITEHORSEPRESS??  Aerostitch Riders Warehouse catalog.

[black hills]

The Places in Between -- Rory something or other.  No motorcycles but the guy walked across Afghanistan in 2002!  Good adventure travel read.

I may have to check it out, this months National Geographic Explorer magazine had an article about him. Sounds interesting

[1moreroad]

I may have to check it out, this months National Geographic Explorer magazine had an article about him. Sounds interesting

Rory Stewart.  He just recently finished a similar adventure in Iraq, The Prince of Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq.  Haven't read it yet.

Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent

[DucDave]

Rory Stewart.  He just recently finished a similar adventure in Iraq, The Prince of Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq.  Haven't read it yet.

Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent

ANYTHING by Bill Bryson!!!
ALL OF Tim Dorseys books

[Headmanbrewing]

No one has mentioned Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance yet?  For shame.  

[black hills]

No one has mentioned Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance yet?  For shame.  

I tried reading it a couple times and quit. Years later I finished it, Iwasn't impressed?? Ya, I got it, but it just seemed to drag on??

[DucDave]

No one has mentioned Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance yet?  For shame.  

Lots of mention of it here...  http://www.sport-touring.net/forums/index.php/topic,10329.0.html

I liked his sequel a little better, Lila!

[Headmanbrewing]

I liked his sequel a little better, Lila!

That's interesting.  I got Lila several years ago and had a hard time with it.  Maybe I'll go back and try again.

And whoever said Blue Highways, +1  

[krautmc]

I just stumbled upon this one yesterday (haven't read it but curious):

http://mopedtosouthamerica.com/

Can you imagine how long and slow a ride that was? I can't.

[BHW]

I stumbled across Under and Alone when it was a new release...and picked it up. I thought it was a very interesting book..very entertaining.

Under and Alone. Story about a US Marshal that infiltrates and eventually becomes a full-patch member of the Mongols. I read it a few months ago, and it's been passed between nearly every member of my family. It's really well written with plenty of dialogue and less of the blow-by-blow in Lavigne's books:

http://www.amazon.com/Under-Alone-Undercover-Infiltrated-Motorcycle/dp/1400060842

[Kootenanny]

I read "Zen and the Art..." years ago, and loved it...I've read it again since.

I've read Pierson's "The Perfect Vehicle," Peart's "Ghost Rider," and Bishop's "Riding with Rilke" all within the past few years, and while all are good reads, I liked "Riding with Rilke" the best (and "Ghost Rider" the least, it's just a bit too introspective for me).

[ctfz1]

Hunter S Thompson started with Hell's Angel's. Liked his later books better.

[DucDave]

RockyMtnWay Posted this in an earlier thread:

---->< cut here ><------

MIDNIGHT ON THE COAST HIGHWAY

"All my life my heart has sought a thing I cannot name."

Months later, when I rarely saw the Angels, I still had the legacy of the big machine - four hundred pounds of chrome and deep red noise to take out on the coast highway and cut loose at three in the morning, when all the cops were lurking over on 101. My first crash had wrecked the bike completely and it took several months to have it rebuilt. After that I decided to ride it differently: I would stop pushing my luck on curves, always wear a helmet, and try to keep within range of the nearest speed limit . . . my insurance policy had been cancelled and my driver's license was hanging by a thread.

So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head, but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz . . . not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all night diner down around Rockaway Beach.

There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip.

Then into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out . . . thirty-five, forty-five . . . then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals but only some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out, too slowly, to start his own run. Not many of those - and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost anything - then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-five and the beginning of a windscream in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a highboard.

Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping and wavering in the wind. Tail-lights far up ahead coming closer, faster, and suddenly - zaaapppp - going past and leaning down for a curve near the zoo, where the road swings out to sea.

The dunes are flatter here, and on windy days sand blows across the highway, piling up in thick drifts as deadly as any oil slick . . . instant loss of control, a crashing, a cartwheeling slide and maybe one of those two inch notices in the paper the next day: "An unidentified motor-cyclist was killed last night when he failed to negotiate a turn on Highway 1."

Indeed . . . but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and now there is no sound except wind. Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and wind burned eyeballs strain to see down the centerline, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes.

But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right . . . and thats when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at one hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporise before they get to your ears. The only sounds are the wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it . . . howling though a turn to your right, then to the left and down the long hill to the Pacifica . . . letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge. . . . The Edge. . . . There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others - the living - are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to chose between Now or Later.

But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.

H.S.T. San Francisco, 1965.

This was new to me and I ordered Hells Angels as a result!  I imagine I will read more of his stuff!

BTW - I keep a short Books, Movies and Music page on my website.

http://www.batmanmoto.com/Booksandmovies.htm

will take you there!

[Jeff N]

If you can find a copy of Barry Coleman's bio of Kenny Roberts the Senior, buy it. Barry's writing style in this book is very conversational and very captivating. I've got a copy and it's a keeper.

[SuperSlider]

TWO WHEELS THROUGH TERROR, you won't be able to put it down.

[xsrider]

'Into the Den of the Bear and the Lair of the Dragon on a Mototrcycle' by Werner Bausenhart

'Rebuilding the Indian: A Memoir' by Fred Haefele

'Investment Biker' by Jim Rogers

[kyzrex]

+1 on Rebuilding the Indian.....I stumbled over it a few years ago, read it , loved it and have reread it 2x since.  Usually in the winter or while on vacation.  Not a "travel" story, but more of a "life journey" story....VERY GOOD

also...the book that I read as a kid, that started this "sickness".....Two-Wheel Thunder.....can't remember the author, but can still recall some of the dialogue like i read it yesterday

patrick

[LENSMAN]

Magnificent Obsession  by Culberson. He was the first to ride the entire Pan_American Hwy by bike by being the first to go through the Darien Gap on a motorcycle.  

[MisterSmooth]

It's heresy; everybody else apparently liked it but I thought that "Perfect Vehicle" descended into pointless navel-gazing.  First five chapters were great but then it decended into a monotonous drone.


Not a book, but the best thing I've read about motorbikes is a piece first published in the LA Times in 2003 by Paul Gordon called "Monster--Two Wheels, One Life."  He's the guy who coined the term "squid."

An excerpt:

"It was in that sparkling age of early adolescence that I first fell under the spell of motorcycle magazines. Tech manuals to chopper rags, they papered my walls with photos of wheelies and trophy chicks, they filled my nights with dreams of fuel and freedom. I had many flirtations, but only one subscription. To a tender young Hoosier, hunkered in a bathtub in southern Indiana, the words of Cycle magazine, written by Ivy League eggheads transported to the magic land of California, read like poetry from far pavilions:

Triumph Bonneville
With all that power and all that slinky, silky smoothness, those good looks and paint job that dares to call itself Olympic Flame and Silver and gets away with it, the Triumph is just about the rightest machine around . . . .

Kawasaki Z1-R
They can call this bike what they want: Rose Petal, Black Bart or Claude. But it's a Kawasaki, and it acts like a Kawasaki, and it feels like a Kawasaki. You know what that means: fast, tough and a trifle crude. Just the way we like it.

Laverda 1000
If you want a faithful servant, get yourself a Honda. But if what you want in a motorcycle is the mechanical equivalent of a good drinking buddy, one who'll lead you into temptation and punch you in the eye for letting life go to your head, a buddy who'll mess with your women, probably plunder your wallet, and make your days glow with raffish excitement . . . " 

[Kootenanny]

It's heresy; everybody else apparently liked it but I thought that "Perfect Vehicle" descended into pointless navel-gazing.  First five chapters were great but then it decended into a monotonous drone.

Not heresy at all, I kinda felt the same way--I don't really need to know about her love life--but it's still a better read than "Ghost Rider," which also starts strong but loses a lot of steam along the way.

[Corbeau]

It's heresy; everybody else apparently liked it but I thought that "Perfect Vehicle" descended into pointless navel-gazing.

Perhaps, but it's such a pretty navel...  

+1, Holbrook Pierson's book is one of the few motorbooks that I couldn't finnish.

I did read Zen and the Art... cover to cover, twice.

[Insideous]

damn where's the movie review.  I was gonna recommend "Dust to glory" about the Baja 1000.

[vulcanbill]

The dude from Two Wheels Through Terror was on Elliott (DC101) the other morning.  Prolly a "best of Elliot" day but still freakin scary.  Need to get that book.  

Actually, how about someone just send it to me?    Good for your Karma.  

[ncarver]

Ron Ayres's 'Against the Wind: A Rider's Account of the Incredible Iron Butt Rally' is an interesting book. Quick read.

[county]

"Song of the Sausage Creature" by Thompson was included in the begining of the "Art of the Motorcycle" book.

If you are covering things written about motorcycles you need to include this.  Opening sentence below.


There are some things that nobody needs in this world, and a bright red, hunchback, warp-speed 900 cc cafe racer is one of them-but I want one anyway and on some days I actually believe I need one.

[MK96xj]

Finishing: Adventure Motorcycling Handbook by Chris Scott

I am about to start Two Wheels Through Terror by Glen Heggstad. AKA Striking Viking on ADV

[Razors]

  to Two Wheels Through Terror by Glen Heggstad

Great read. I too had a hard time putting it down. There was also a documentary done on Glenn where Glen re-inacted the story. That was intense as well.  

PS

I will not be riding through Central America anytime soon.

[Sputnik]

Just finished "Lois on the Loose".
Well written, very funny, typical caustic Brit sense of humour.

http://www.loisontheloose.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Lois-Loose-Motorcycle-Across-Americas/dp/0312352212

[Sputnik]

not bike related but hilarious and somewhat diffrent travel book...based on a bet, this guy hitches aroud Ireland with a refrigerator!

http://www.amazon.com/Round-Ireland-Fridge-Tony-Hawks/dp/0312274920/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201650849&sr=1-1

[cbsnbiker]

Here's one that's different from the usual motorcycle touring book: "South of Haunted Dreams: A Ride through Slavery's Old Backyard" by Eddy Harris.

http://www.eddyharris.com/books/south.htm

A small bonus: he toured on a blue BMW K75S, the same as my brother's first bike.

[clyde]

"Chasing Che" by Patrick Symmons. Good book. No political BS, he just followed the route of Che through South America and wrote about what he saw and what happened along the way. The guy is a travel writer first, motorcyclist second. Good read. I just finished "Ghost Rider" by Neal Pert. Too much whinning and complaining (yeah, I know the guys wife died and all of that, but geez, enough already.) Plus half the book was letters he wrote to a friend that was sitting in jail on drug charges. Got boring fast.

[sagerat]

I See By My Outfit, by Peter S. Beagle about he and his buddy riding motorscooers (shh, don't tell county) cross-country in 1963.

[Stray Cat]

"The Longest Ride" by Emillio Scotto. An Argentinian that goes around the world on a 1100 CC Gold Wing! Amazing and so far it's my favorite of the 'round the world books!

[DogBoy]

My favorite motorcycle book is Robert Fulton Jr.'s One Man Caravan. I loved every word. link

[bomber]

+1000 on I see by my outfit -- great read, adapting and overcoming at every turn

The good Doctor Thompson's screed are amusing, good fun, and interesting period pieces -- just don't go basing your world view on em, or thinking of them as accurate reportage.

I dig the daylights outa Egan's Leanings One and Deuce -- they ARE reprints of his columns, but they are some of the best musings on bikes and riding available (that they are the prodcuts of a gray-haired midwesterner has nothing whatsoever to do with my opinion, btw ;-}  )

Che's motorcycle adventure books were OK, I guess -- after reading them, I was left extremely perplexed by the dichotomy between who he was, and who he turned out to be -- quite a strange trip, indeed.

[Kootenanny]

I've been reading a few Jack McDevitt books lately.  Chindi was enjoyable.

I'm a big fan of McDevitt, but what do his novels have to do with motorcycling?

[Kootenanny]

All the thread said was...good reads on rides and adventure.

Well, in that case, I could give you a list as long as my arm--I read a LOT--but, I kinda assume that the original poster was looking for books with some kind of connection to motorcycling, or at least travelling on Earth...

[ol Rocket]

I stand corrected.  My bad.

[Geoff]

- Under and Alone, William Queen
- Leanings, Peter Egan
- Ghost Rider, Neil Peart

[Canuck]

I loved Holbrook Pierson's The Perfect Vehicle. Read it twice. I also loved Ted Bishop's Riding with Rilke, which was shortlisted for the Governor-General's award for non-fiction. In Canuck-land that is the kind of like the Pulitzer Prize. FWIW I know Ted Bishop, and he considers Holbrook Pierson's the best book about motorcycling. Haefele's Rebuilding the Indian is another of my favorites, and very funny too. All of these have been mentioned already. Here's two good ones that have not been mentioned.

- Christopher Baker. Mi Moto Fidel. Motorcycling through Castro's Cuba
- Geno Zanetti (ed.). She's a Bad Motorcycle. Writers on Riding.

Off topic a bit, but I've often thought it would be great if this site had a place you could store documents in Word, pdf etc. Then, for example, we could collectively create a list of best books and have it save as a downloadable file. The same could be done with lots of good info.

[kyzrex]

another one to add

Riding Man by Mark Gardner.  A companion book to the vidio One Man's Island, but more indepth and IMO better.

Dude quits his job as a big money Ad Exec and moves to the Isle of Mann.  Lives there for a year, learns the course, qualifies and races.

 

patrick

[motomodo]

I think NGC did a doc on Under and Alone that aired recently.

[Kootenanny]

...FWIW I know Ted Bishop, and he considers Holbrook Pierson's the best book about motorcycling.

I find this interesting, as I think "Riding with Rilke" is a better read than "The Perfect Vehicle..."

[Canuck]

I find this interesting, as I think "Riding with Rilke" is a better read than "The Perfect Vehicle..."

Bishop is an English Prof at the University of Alberta. Holbrook Pierson is a poet. I think he appreciates the way she writes in ways we layfolk don't.

[SteveJones]

This may at first sound like a book that has nothing to do with motorcycles or riding.

But if I was going to write a forward for it, targeted to riders, it would go like this:

When I ride the twisty roads an appreciation for the work of the second rate highway engineer grows within me.  I'm talking about the guy who slept too late and didn't study as hard as those who got hired on the 8-lane projects.

However he wound up at a drafting board sketching out the road snaking under me, his art reaches its highest expression when it washes up against the gnarled wreckage of geology.  

Something special occurs when that guy who tells the dozers what to do runs into mountains young and old, into tectonic plates heaved up in long settled or even active battle. It happens when rocks whose struggles reach back an epoch or three force him to put down the ruler and put on his wizard hat, 'cause it's time to make magic.

True, he may only be interested in how this three-dimensional nightmare crept up on him, and how to find a reasonable way to lay his asphalt down on these tortured shapes.  Possibly he regrets not studying harder.  But I say his work is breathtaking.

Long after he is done and the dozers have moved on to other deeds, those of us drawn to the squiggly lines on the map sometimes pause when faced with what we see around us, and wonder what the heck caused all this magnificent impediment to transportation.

Well I do anyway.  

If you do too, "Annals of the Former World" by John McPhee will open your eyes to an astonishing show most of us miss as we travel the blue highways.  

Where once we saw only the surface, McPhee takes us inside the massive floating sheets of rock we call the United States, superficially scored with the tiny twisted threads of asphalt we love so well.  Read it and with every grade you climb, river you shadow, and ridge you follow, the warsongs of the crust rolling beneath you will ring in your ears.  It's pretty cool.

So admittedly, it's not a book about riding, or even about roads.  It's a book about geology.  

But it's the first to make geology sexy.

Though the idea of a book that explains the huge, dramatic shifts in US geology might sound like a snore, "Annals of the Former World" by John McPhee will keep you up late many a night.  It is a collection in one binding of 4 of his books and a couple of essays on the topic, weighing in at around 700 pages.

McPhee is a brilliant writer, and the book won a non-fiction Pulitzer.  Despite the length and subject it manages to be a real
page-turner.  It is an easy yet not superficial read, a treat even for someone not previously interested in the topic.

No, I am not related to John McPhee  

[sagerat]

+1 on John McPhee, I think I've got one entire bookcase with nothing but McPhee on it.

Try "Oranges" a quick read on the orange that spans botany, geography, economics, art, and literature.

Or you could for "Control of Nature" which is is about volcanoes, earthquakes, flood control on the lower Mississippi River or "Survival of the Birchbark Canoe" which is about a guy in New Hampshire who taught himself to make canoes in the traditional manner.

[mustang28027]

I just finished reading "Ghost Rider" by Neal Peart, of the band RUSH. He lost his daughter and long time gf within a year or so, and decided to hot the road for a year to mourn. He is incredibly smart and  writes pretty well, however the book was also incredibly boring, with him going into graphic detail on every place he stayed... ever critiqued the meals, and his eloquence is only dominished by his eliteism... I eventually got bored with it and then went to the end to see how it finished... What looked like an interesting book  spiraled into an effort of boredom...  More interesting are the rider reports in ST.NET!

[Groody]

-Top Dead Center by CW's Kevin Cameron.  While not as good as a writer as Peter Egan, the book is still a pretty good history of racing and motorcycle technology. Not too thick on the technical details, for the most part.

-Whatever Happened to the British motorcycle industry by Bert Hopwood. Good history on how the Japanese bikes put a whole industry out of business. A bit technical, but has some priceless gems such as a British motorcycle exec's belief that, prior to the release of large CC bikes by the Japanese, it was nice of the Japanese to make small bikes because when riders wanted a larger bike, then they could by a Norton, Triumph......

[atypical1]

I find this interesting, as I think "Riding with Rilke" is a better read than "The Perfect Vehicle..."

I agree with you on this one. "Riding with Rilke" was a really fun read.

james

[bpg]

good stuff people!

I've read a few mentioned and agree with what's been said, a LOT of great books out there.  

Along a similar vein, here's one I WOULDN'T recommend - "Life is a Road, the Soul is a Motorcycle" by Daniel B Meyer..

Terrible, just plain awful..  Didn't live up to its name a'tall!

[johnnyb]

"Rebuilding the Indian" by Fred Haefele

[doug5551]

Many thanks for posting all of these many favorites.  All along I thought I was the only one reading these books.

I am so happy to see that these books have been read by so many here on the website.

Maybe I am less alienated that I thought...

[ModemRat]

Just finished reading Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Across the World.  I watched the DVDs and had a lot of questions and the book answered a lot of them.  I wrote up a book review with more details of my impressions if anyone is interested:

Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Across the World (Book Review)

[Canuck]

Over Christmas I read Melissa Holbrook Pierson's fairly new book The Man Who Would Stop At Nothing, which is largely about the IBA and endurance riders, with a focus on one. I did a search and found this old thread. I even found a 2008 contribution from me to  my surprise. Anyway, it was a great thread and I thought it deserved a bounce, especially since there has to be a lot of good new books since 2008, and Holbrook Pierson's is one of them, though not quite as good as her The Perfect Vehicle (in my humble opinion). In fact, reading her latest has inspired me to plan to do another Iron Butt ride this summer.

[bluepoof]

Cool, thanks for the rec! I hadn't heard that she had a new(ish) book.  

[motociclista]

Shameless self promotion alert:

Since this old thread has been resurrected, I can recommend the book in my signature below.

And because I'm a biased source, more than a dozen excerpts of reviews are here: http://www.theridesofar.com/feedback.html.

[DosEquis00]

Shameless self promotion alert:

Since this old thread has been resurrected, I can recommend the book in my signature below.

And because I'm a biased source, more than a dozen excerpts of reviews are here: http://www.theridesofar.com/feedback.html.

I have to agree as the book was an excellent read!

[Orson]

I bought 101 Road Tales by Clement Salvadori.

While the guy has been everywhere on his bike, in comparison to the whimsical stylings of Peter Egan, Salvadori's writing is very dry and matter of factual. I hate to say it because the guy is such an accomplished traveler, but the book put me to sleep.