Five Inspiring Novels to Read on a Roadtrip – Lynnette Lounsbury

Quite obviously the book you would take on a Cruise is completely different to the book you would take camping. Likewise the books you read on a wine trip through South Africa would be different to those you take on Safari. And of course – you need a very special book for a roadtrip. This most quintessential of travel experiences needs its own mood, its own vernacular and its own set of characters.

There have been many books written about the roadtrip. This is not what I am talking about. I am talking about those rare stories that encapsulate the feeling of a roadtrip, of the endlessness of the dark ribbon in front of you, of the internal fight between purposeful travel and aimless wanderings, of the strange and life-altering people you meet along the journey.

 

 

5. The Motorcycle Diaries, Che Guevara.

“When I read these notes for the first time, I was quite young myself and I immediately identified with this man who narrated his adventures in such a spontaneous manner… To tell you the truth, the more I read, the more I was in love with the boy my father had been…” —Aleida Guevara

“As his journey progresses, Guevara’s voice seems to deepen, to darken, colored by what he witnesses in his travels. He is still poetic, but now he comments on what he sees, though still poetically, with a new awareness of the social and political ramifications of what’s going on around him.”—January Magazine

This book was a travel diary and has become both an award winning film and a bestseller. It is the story of a young man discovering his own country and himself. It is full of small details and intimate anecdotes, but it is expansive as well, showing Che’s growth from boy to man to revolutionary. You’ll want to be a braver person after this one.

 

4. American Gods, Neil Gaiman.

On his way home from prison, Shadow discovers that not only is his wife dead, but that there are strange godlike creatures inhabiting America and requesting his help. Mr Wednesday – a god, a king and an alien – takes him on a road trip across the US, through not only the “heartland” but through a preternatural storm of the gods. 

This is for those of you who need something strange and gut moving. It is an unusual and wonderful book that will make you feel at once wiser and very, very foolish. It is unsettling in the extreme. And wonderful. Dont’ let me forget to mention that.

 

3. Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas, Hunter.S. Thompson.

“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”  HST

 

So its not really a novel as such – it was an article originally commissioned by Sports Illustrated. Drugs intervened and it became a rambling and brilliant piece published instead by rolling stone and bringing to life a counter culture experience of Los Vegas that needs to be read. You will never be as drunk, as paranoid or as dangerously felonious as these two and thus the vicarious experience is invaluable. Strap yourself down before you start.

 

2.  America Day by Day, Simone de Beauvoir.

“I watch the Mexican dances and eat chili con carne, which takes the roof off my mouth, I drink the tequila and I’m utterly dazed with pleasure.” SdB

A French woman travelling from NY City to California – you know its going to be good. This is 1947 and Simone travels by train, bus and car across a country that is in the midst of post-war change. She is fascinating to share this journey with as she is both intellectual and hedonist- you want to be her and you want to be friends with her.

 

1. On the Road, Jack Kerouac

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” JK

It had to be done. It’s in my top ten books of all time and it changed everything I thought about life and travel the first time I read it. The rambling, loose and rule-less writing envelopes you in a feeling that it is okay to journey, okay to wander and that there is no need to arrive. It has dated, but only because there have been so many emulators since that it feels like it has been done – it hadn’t been when the novel came out. Jack was the first and he is still the best at this most fluid of genres – he writes the way musicians play jazz. On The Road follows his characters Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty and they search for both self-knowledge and experience without any real moral compass to curtail them. At the very least your feet will itch, at most you will be out the door before the final chapter.

 

Happy Reading,

– L

Lynnette Lounsbury is editor of Ytravel and has roadtripped across both Australia and the USA. She is author of her own roadtrip novel, We ate the Road Like Vultures, due for release in 2016. (Inkerman and Blunt).