Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Rare Books
Travels in search of a settler's guide-book of America and Canada
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Rare Books
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Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Image not available
Rare Books
329343
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Rare Books
Thirty-five years ago, when "searching for America" was not yet the cliche it has since become, Steinbeck hit the highways with his French poodle, Charley. In a custom-built camper he named Rosinante after Don Quixote's steed, the two traveled the country--10,000 miles and 34 states. Their varied experiences comprise several slices of small-town back-roads Americana. Steinbeck laments the rise of plastic-covered everything, the vacuousness of "sad souls" he encounters, and the homogenization of local and regional culture. But bright spots abound, and Steinbeck rarely forsakes his humor and his hope in the human spirit. He reluctantly swings through the deep, segregated South before he concludes his trip. Here the ugly specter of racism pervades all, and Steinbeck's chronicle is profoundly disturbing.
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Rare Books
"Twenty years -- in the twentieth century -- are a long time, and for twenty years John Steinbeck has been occupied in writing about America, while America changed. He felt that he might have lost touch with this monster country, with its speech, the smell of its grass and trees, its color and quality of light, the pulse of its people. To reassure himself, he set out on a voyage of rediscovery, accompanied by a distinguished French poodle named Charley, and riding in a three-quarter-ton pickup truck equipped with miniature ship's cabin and named Rocinante. His course took him through almost forty states: northward from Long Island to Maine; through the Middle West to Chicago; onward by way of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana (with which he fell in love), and Idaho to Seattle, south to San Francisco and his birth place, Salines; eastward through the Mojave, New Mexico, Arizona, to the vast hospitality of Texas, to New Orleans and a shocking drama of desegregation; finally, on the least leg, through Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to New York. Again, as always, Steinbeck's concern was with the people. As the small villages, the vast spaces, towering mountains, and laughing meadows unrolled before the indomitable Rocinante, her owner, aided and cheered by Charley, looked for the American identity. It is exact and provable, he decided. It triumphs over sectional difference, over geography, temperament, and dialect. 'From start to finish I found no strangers. ... These are my people and this is my country.' Never before have people and country been examined and reported with so much love combined with so much critical insight"--Dust jacket.
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