The Road (narrative project) So Far...: 02/08/16

It's been ten months now since I went cold turkey on ARCs and other review copies to free up time for my road narrative project. In that time I have mapped out my project in terms of questions I need to ask, topics I want to pursue, and of course, books I want to read (as well as television shows and movies I want to watch).

In these ten months I've read twenty eight books, or roughly three books a month. It's been a mixture of history, theory, philosophy, memoir, and fiction. So far, though, I've mostly read nonfiction because I was in the process of building my vocabulary from which to understand how the road itself affects the tropes of the road trip narrative.

At the moment my road narrative reading has slowed a bit because I'm reading fiction. Here I need to read with a more careful eye. A side project to the fiction is a reading of Supernatural against Jack Kerouac's books. On the Road is the source material (in a paranormal homage way) but I'm finding evidence that other books of his have influenced the series. The Supernatural tangent won't be the full part of the project but it's certainly one of the most fun parts.

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Road Trip books read

1. American Road: The Story of an Epic Transcontinental Journey at the Dawn of the Motor Age by Pete Davies
2. Autokind Vs. Mankind: An Analysis of Tyranny, a Proposal for Rebellion, a Plan for Reconstruction by Kenneth R. Schneider
3. The Big Roads by Earl Swift
4. Blue Highways: A Journey Into America by William Least Heat-Moon
5. The Colossus of Roads: Myth and Symbol Along the American Highway by Karal Ann Marling
6. Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac
7. The Endangered Species Road Trip: A Summer's Worth of Dingy Motels, Poison Oak, Ravenous Insects, and the Rarest Species in North America by Cameron MacDonald
8. Fed, White, and Blue: Finding America with My Fork by Simon Majumdar
9. I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios
10. Icons of Popular Culture by Marshall Fishwick
11. Imaginary Communities: Utopia, the Nation, and the Spatial Histories of Modernity by Phillip Wegner
12. Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway by Matt Dellinger
13. Kissing in America by Margo Rabb
14. Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid
15. The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate by Michael Wallis
16. The New Yorker Book of True Love Cartoons by The New Yorker
17. Off Road by Sean Murphy
18. On Highway 61: Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom by Dennis McNally
19. Open Road by Phil Patton
20. Out West: A Journey through Lewis and Clark's America by Dayton Duncan
21. Paper Towns by John Green
22. Pastoral Cities: Urban Ideals And The Symbolic Landscape Of America by James L. Machor
23. The Power to Go by Merrill Denison
24. Return to Augie Hobble by Lane Smith
25. Road Frames: The American Highway Narrative by Kris Lackey
26. Romance of the Road: The Literature of the American Highway by Ronald Primeau
27. Survival Strategies of the Almost Brave by Jen White
28. The Vacation by Polly Horvath

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