Life Is a Highway: A Century of Great Automotive Writing

As a celebration of cars and car ownership, this collection hits all the high spots along the road. Requisite articles from "Road & Track" and "Car and Driver" are included, but so are excerpts from Stephen King's "Christine" and Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". One author writes in 1917 that the popularity of automobiles will expand the gene pool of rural citizens: instead of choosing mates within a five- to ten-mile radius, they may use the automobile to make longer journeys, thus decreasing intermarriage among relatives. P.J. O'Rourke is represented with an essay on winter driving, and Jay Leno, Rowan Atkinson, and pieces from "The Onion" go for the laughs. A profile on driver Phil Hill is touching, and an article about an electric car from 1915 makes the reader sigh with regret. (The absence of E.B. White's classic "Farewell, My Lovely!" is a disappointment.) VERDICT While lacking the big, glossy photographs that car enthusiasts love, this book will appeal to readers who enjoy a bit of history and literature tossed in with articles about their beloved Volvos and Ferraris.—Susan Belsky, Oshkosh P.L., WI Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information. (Check Catalog)