Dorothy R. (obsidianfire) reviewed 'A Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow': An American Hitchhiking Odyssey on + 133 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 27
Great stories, and interesting philosophy. Made me want to go out and have my own hitchiking experience, but I'm too much a scaredy cat. But it was great fun living vicariously through his book.
Marilyn D. (bookcrosser) reviewed 'A Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow': An American Hitchhiking Odyssey on + 118 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
In 1973, Brookes, then a British student, spent three months hitchhiking across America, dazzled by a girl from Iowa he had met at Oxford. In 1998, Brookes, now a writer, teacher, and longtime Vermonter, decides to re-create that experience and hitchhike to the same places again. He's not crazy: he periodically takes trains or buses and carries a cell phone in his daughter's sock. He tracks a few of the people and most of the places he encountered the first time, but this is no self-referential wallowing. He's not interested in reliving the past but in illuminating the present, and he carries both a cheerful lack of anxiety and a disarming lack of pretense. In crisp, short chapters, he recounts conversations with the folks who pick him up and his responses to the places he goes: a gospel church in San Francisco; a previous wife in Seattle; a desolate reservation in South Dakota. He finds kindness and gratitude, and he clearly has those within himself as well.
Bobbie L. (nascargal) reviewed 'A Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow': An American Hitchhiking Odyssey on + 352 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This is an interesting book about a man who hitches his way across the U.S. He meets fascinating people, old flames, and old friends. All and all a good book to read.
