Road Trips
Take home one of these novels centered around road trips!
The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
Tom Langdon, a weary and cash-strapped journalist, is banned from flying when a particularly thorough airport security search causes him to lose his cool. Now, he must take the train if he has any chance of arriving in Los Angeles in time for Christmas with his girlfriend.
Heading West by Doris Betts
Nancy Finch is a 34-year-old librarian who’s on a boring vacation with her relatives when she’s kidnapped by a psychopath named Dwight. A hapless judge becomes a second hostage on a westward ride that becomes a journey of liberation for Nancy.
Talk Talk by T.C. Boyle
Having fallen completely in love with hearing-impaired Dana, Bridger is unable to believe her guilty of charges ranging from assault to auto theft and discovers that a man named Peck Wilson has been living a life of criminal excess at Dana's expense. The couple then engages in a suspenseful chase across America to catch the thief.
Gentlemen of the Road: a Tale of Adventure by Michael Chabon
In the Kingdom of Aran, in the Caucasus Mountains in 950 A.D., two adventurers wander the region, plying their trade as swords for hire, until they become involved in a coup in the medieval Jewish empire of the Khazars as bodyguards for a fugitive prince.
Crazy in Alabama by Mark Childress
The world turns upside down and everything goes a little crazy in this tale by the author of Tender about a hot, restless summer and an unforgettable woman who looks for salvation on the road to and in Hollywood.
Wakefield by Andrei Codrescu
When the Devil arrives to take his soul, Wakefield, a motivational speaker and architecture buff, makes a bargain that would give him one year to search for an alternative life and embarks on an odyssey that takes him across the country.
Stupid and Contagious by Caprice Crane
Indie record producer Brady, 29, and PR maven turned surly waitress Heaven, 26, meet as neighbors when Heaven receives and reads Brady's mail. But irritation soon turns to attraction as the two take a wacky road trip to Seattle, where Brady waxes enthusiastic about signing a band and attempts to meet with the founder of Starbucks about his idea for a new drink.
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech (Juvenile Fiction)
After her mother leaves home suddenly, 13-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.
Only Revolutions by Mark Danielewski
Moving back and forth in American history, a kaleidoscopic novel follows Hailey and Sam, two wayward teenagers, as they crash New Orleans parties, barrel up the Mississippi, head through the Badlands, and take on other adventures.
Deliverance by James Dickey
Four suburban businessmen take a canoe trip along a Georgia river, an odyssey that pits their courage against the river's raging rapids and the most primitive human impulses of fear, lust, and murder. Also try To the White Sea.
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
The quiet 1960s midwestern life of the Land family is upended when son Davy kills two teenage boys who have come to harm the family. Davy then escapes from his cell and the Lands set out in search of him. Their search is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, a love story, and a haunting meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world.
The Reivers by William Faulkner
Boon persuades Lucius, age 11, to borrow his grandfather's car in 1905. African-American Ned stows away and the three are off on a heroic odyssey which ends at Miss Reba's bordello. When Ned turns up in the night with a horse he traded for the car, the action accelerates wildly and draws the group, trainmen, and deputies into a mad melee of smuggling a horse across country, planning a bizarre race, and landing in jail.
Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser
For starters, Harry Flashman is expelled from school as a drunken bully. After seducing his father's mistress, he begins a secret life that leads from the boudoirs and bordellos of Victorian England to the erotic frontiers of her exotic Empire. Along the way he lies, cheats, steals, fights fixed duels, betrays his country and proves a coward on the battlefield. Also try the rest of the Flashman Chronicles.
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Toward the end of the Civil War wounded Confederate soldier Inman leaves the hospital before being sent back to battle and walks 300 miles home through the Blue Ridge Mountains. He hopes that Ida, the minister’s daughter he loved four years ago, still waits for him.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
On the plane ride home for his wife’s funeral, after a stint in prison, Shadow meets the enigmatic Mr. Wednesday, who offers him a job. Shadow accepts and along the way journeys across the landscape of America meeting the all-but-forgotten gods who have come to our country over the past centuries. But Shadow soon discovers that Mr. Wednesday is far more dangerous than he could ever have imagined and Shadow is now caught in up a war for the very soul of America. Also try Stardust.
Soul Mountain by Xingjian Gao
Threatened with time on a prison farm for defying his country's laws of cultural conformity, artist/writer Gao Xingjian embarked on an epic search for his inner self and for his freedom. The author's journey through southern China's ancient mountains and forests inspired this story.
Mother Road by Dorothy Garlock
Managing a Depression-era garage on Route-66 in Oklahoma while his friend recovers from an animal bite, Yates finds himself falling in love with his friend's babysitter and housekeeper, who has scandalized the town by living with her employer. Also try the other novels in Garlock’s Route-66 series: Hope’s Highway and Song of the Road.
American Purgatorio by John Haskell
"I'm from Chicago originally. I went to New York, married a girl named Anne, and was in the middle of living happily ever after when something happened." So begins Haskell's first novel, the story of a man who discovers that his life has suddenly vanished. From the brownstones of New York City to the many beaches of California, we follow the journey of a man whose desire is heartbreaking and ephemeral.
Setting Free the Bears by John Irving
In the mid-1960’s Siggy and Hannes were disenchanted students and fellow conspirators. Astride a 700cc Royal Enfield motorcycle, they roamed the Austrian countryside. When Gallen, a lovely hitchhiker, joined them, they zeroed in on the Vienna Zoo--and Siggy's dream: setting free the bears!
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The most famous of Jack Kerouac's works, is not only the soul of the Beat movement and literature, but one of the most important novels of the century. Like nearly all of Kerouac's writing, On The Road is thinly fictionalized autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouac's real life friends, lovers, and fellow travelers.
Mission to America by Walter Kirn
On a mission to recruit young women for their church, Mason LaVerle and Elias Stark leave Montana and experience the excesses of contemporary American society in a Colorado ski town teeming with colorful inhabitants.
White Widow by Jim Lehrer
Although faithful to his wife for years, bus driver Jack Oliver becomes quite enamored with a beautiful yet unattainable woman - known as a “white widow” - who boards his bus one night in the 1950s. Also try Eureka, in which a middle-aged man tries to escape his boring life and nagging wife.
Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem
Trying to avoid his day-to-day struggles and unable to remember his life before nuclear war, Chaos attempts to live as one of the mutated survivors until he is told that the bombs never fell and sets off on a journey for the truth.
Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire
The sequel to Wicked. Alternating flashbacks and action describe the boyhood adventures of Liir, probable son of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. Follow his travels with Dorothy and her nonhuman companions, his quest for his missing childhood friend Nor as well as Elphaba's notorious book of spells, and his time spent in the Emerald City's Home Guard defense force and his struggle with the forces of both disorder and incumbency.
Handling Sin by Michael Malone
Prosperous insurance agent, leading citizen, and forgetful husband and father, Raleigh Whittier Hayes runs off to New Orleans in search of his aging and eccentric father, his murky family history, confederate gold, and some peace and quiet.
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
In the 1930s, 16-year-old Billy Parham captures a she-wolf that has been marauding his family's ranch and instead of killing it, he decides to take it back to the mountains of Mexico. With that crossing, he begins an arduous and often dreamlike journey into a country where men meet ghosts and violence strikes as suddenly as heat-lightning.
The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty
Working as a quality control inspector at a toy factory in Rhode Island, friendless alcoholic Smithy Ide considers himself a loser until a tragic event prompts him to set off on an epic cross-country bicycle journey. Along the way he trades stories with strangers, re-examines his past and rediscovers what it means to live.
The Last Great Snake Show by Tim McLaurin
Snake handler Jubal Lee, exotic dancer Gloria Peacock, and cranky old soldier Clinton Tucker set out to deliver the ailing Miss Darlene, their former employer, to her property on the Oregon coast she bought years ago sight unseen.
Cadillac Jack by Larry McMurtry
Cadillac Jack is a rodeo-cowboy-turned-antique-scout whose nomadic, womanizing life - centered on his classic pearl-colored Cadillac - rambles between the Texas flatlands of flea markets and small-time auctions and Washington, D.C.'s political-social life of parties, hustlers, vixens, and spies.
Liars and Saints by Maile Meloy
Follows four generations of the Catholic Santerre family of California, from World War II to the present, as they navigate through a succession of life-altering events revelations, cross country trips and other travels during which its members are driven by jealousy, propriety, love, deceit, and tragedy.
Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo
The only thing certain about a journey is that it has a beginning and an end; you never know what may happen along the way. And so it is with this journey into the minds and souls of two very different men. Otto Ringling, husband, father and editor sets out on a cross country drive from New York to his recently deceased parents’ North Dakota farm to settle their estate. However, when his flaky sister convinces him to give a ride to her guru, a crimson-robed monk, Otto knows there will be a few bumps in the road.
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
As youths, Biff and his pal Jesus travel to the East in search of the wise men who gave gifts to Jesus at his birth, because the young man has a problem: he knows he's the Messiah, but he doesn't know what to do about it. Along the way, he and Biff come in contact with the spirituality of the East, along with a smattering of martial arts, strange poisons, abominable snowmen, and more.
Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
With her characteristic wit and piercing intelligence she unfolds a series of sometimes dark portraits of the lost and unsettled of America, and with a trademark humor that fuels each story with pathos and understanding.
Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
Assigned to a story on sudden infant death syndrome, journalist and widower Carl Streator finds a poetry anthology that contains an African chant that becomes lethal when spoken or thought in someone's direction. Convinced that he's stumbled onto a piece of dark, murderous magic, he hits
the road on a mission to destroy all existing copies of the book, accompanied by an eccentric team that includes two members of a local coven and a real estate agent who specializes in haunted houses.
Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Taking to the road between seasons, attractive Chicago Stars quarterback Dean Robillard meets the beautiful and infuriating Blue under unusual circumstances and draws on his competitive skills to overcome her wariness of relationships.
Sideways by Rex Pickett
As best friends Miles and Jack leave Los Angeles for Santa Ynez wine country in preparation for Jack's impending nuptials, they embark on a raucous, weeklong road trip that allows Jack to contemplate his final days of freedom and gives Miles--who has divorced his wife, lost his money, and forgotten his passion for life--a chance to reevaluate his life.
Fruit of Stone by Mark Spragg
Presents the story of the lifelong friendship of two men and their love for the woman who eludes them. When she leaves her husband for a new life, the two men follow her in an odyssey across the American West that forces truths and reveals the mystical, sometimes fatal bonds of love and loyalty.
Roads of the Heart by Christopher Tilghman
Visiting his elderly father, whose public service career has been tainted by a sex scandal, Eric Alwin considers the impact of his own infidelity on his career and marriage and accompanies his father on a journey of discovery and reconciliation in the deep south.
My House in Umbria by William Trevor
Mrs. Emily Delahunty, a mysterious former madam, lives quietly in the Italian countryside and writes romance novels. Then one day her world is changed forever as her train is blown up by terrorists. Taken to a local hospital to recuperate, she befriends the other survivors and takes them all to convalesce at her villa, with unforeseen results.
Shout Down the Moon by Lisa Tucker
After her tumultuous childhood and a destructive teenage romance, Patty Taylor is struggling to build a new life for herself and her two-year-old son. She is now part of a band traveling on the road, though she gets little respect from the guys in the band. But she soon finds her new world undermined by the reappearance of her son's father.
Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
During a 90-mile drive to her best friend's husband's funeral, Maggie and her husband, Ira, recall and reevaluate the details of their 28-year marriage.
A Thousand Country Roads by Robert Waller
Robert Kincaid finds himself with little but memories of a lonely existence lived mostly on the road — and of Francesca Johnson, the woman whose passion he briefly stirred with such power. Kincaid takes to the road again, with his dog Highway beside him, in what becomes a journey of discovery and surprise back to Madison County, Iowa, returning to the place of his great love affair.
Going Native by Stephen Wright
One late-summer night, in the midst of a backyard barbecue with friends, Wylie Jones steps out the front door of his house into another life. Stealing a neighbor's car, a battered Ford Galaxie 500, Wylie embarks on a terrifying odyssey across the heart of media-haunted America.