Enjoyable and informative—one of the best books on the topic in years.
Propulsive story of the mythologized, misunderstood universe of motorcycling.
Johnson (White Heat, 2007, etc.) balances his nerdy-gearhead side with precise, vivid prose and a clear understanding of his subject’s history and technology. The author views the motorcycle as several things—fascinating narrative of technical advancement within an unforgiving marketplace, an eternal social metaphor and the most physically exhilarating experience available. He begins with an intimate discussion of the mythic “open road” (“the landscape writes itself on your body, mile after mile”), reflecting his devotion to his lifelong obsession. Involved with motorcycles for 40 years, he grew up riding, starting with the smallest cycles available to a risk-entranced child, and has ridden nearly every kind of bike: high-end Italian Ducatis, off-road bikes, a Japanese touring cycle and various obscure, much–sought-after British bikes. Johnson ties broad personal experience to countless aspects of the topic, including valuable pointers on how to behave around “one-percenters,” outlaw bikers. He establishes expertise with a highly detailed history of the motorcycle’s development, which began nearly 150 years ago, and became popular enough in the early 20th century so that in the United States and Britain “manufacturers sprang up everywhere”—most of which were slain during the ’70s by the Japanese Big Four (Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki). Johnson argues that innovation has always been propelled by daredevils and eccentrics on the far edge of racing and high-risk riding, leading to no shortage of competitive shenanigans. The author seems addicted to competition and speed himself, covering the insular worlds of “flat-track” (cement) racing, motocross (dirt racing), hill scrambles (crazily risky and incongruously family-friendly), world prestige races like the Isle of Man TT and the Dakar Rally, and the world-record cult that revolves around the Bonneville Salt Flats. Johnson captures the obsessive excitement of motorcycle culture with enough verve to make nonriders understand, and jealous, although he doesn’t undersell its dangers.
Enjoyable and informative—one of the best books on the topic in years.Pub Date: July 27, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5032-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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