Travels with Charley
in search of America
by John Steinbeck · first published 1962
36% recommend57% neutral7% critical
Why HN recommends it
Steinbeck's road trip across America with his poodle Charley, written in his later years; readers enjoy its warm, observational view of 1960s Americana, dining with truckers and revisiting old friends.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A quest across America, from the northernmost tip of Maine to California's Monterey Peninsula To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the tress, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years. With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. And he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, on a particular
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
Related books
2008–2026East of Eden
John Steinbeck
Recommended by 60 · mentioned by 9960 recommend · 99 mention60 recommend · 9960 recommend
2010–2026Last Chance to See
Douglas Adams, Mark Carwardine
Recommended by 30 · mentioned by 4030 recommend · 40 mention30 recommend · 4030 recommend
2008–2026The Name of the Wind
Patrick Rothfuss, Marc Simonetti
Recommended by 60 · mentioned by 9960 recommend · 99 mention60 recommend · 9960 recommend
2008–2026The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
Recommended by 56 · mentioned by 17056 recommend · 170 mention56 recommend · 17056 recommend
2007–2026Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson
Recommended by 364 · mentioned by 977364 recommend · 977 mention364 recommend · 977364 recommend
…(specifically Christianity), which is why it isn't read in school. But the principles and themes of the book dig really deep into human morals and how we choose our personal values. I really love it. Lastly, Travels with Charley is a fun view of Americana. It was written much later in Steinbeck's life and is a much easier and lighter read. But its very fun and I recommend it to everyone. It is a personal story of Steinbeck traveling…
on “The Grapes of Wrath was banned in the USSR because showed poor people had cars” ↗100 Books like Project Hail Mary (https://shepherd.com/books-like/project-hail-mary) : - Travels with Charley : With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. - Invisible Women : Data…
on “Show HN: See what readers who loved your favorite book/author also loved to read” ↗For those interested in this, check out Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck. It was written in 1962, but I think it holds up well. An aged Steinbeck feels out of touch with a country he is famous for writing about. To aid this, he travels…
on “Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.” ↗…Mountain by Thomas Mann. The first time it was slow read, but I went back the book several times later in life and it has much to tell. The Glass Beads Game by Herman Hess. Several books by Steinbeck - Travels with Charley, Log from the Sea of Cortez. The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo. A recent penguin translation is superb. Among the saddest and most memorable love stories.
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite books of all time, and why?” ↗…people we've probably met but don't fully understand. Cannery Row, To a God Unknown and Tortilla Flat are easy to read examples of this if you don't want to commit to East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath. Travels with Charley is also a log of America in the 60s, even if you take it as a novel. I can't argue against Whitman though.
on “Who Is America's Homer?” ↗…(reasonably hard to ruin, owner operable, easily stocked with energy, affordable) they'll have no shortage of disgruntled citizens waiting to try one out. You mean... mobile homes. John Steinbeck, in Travels with Charley, was very positive about the motorhome's possibilities. But we know how that dream turned out.
on “Floating city project” ↗There's an odd moment in Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, his book about a 1960 roadtrip across the US, where he encounters a couple living in a mobile home and sings the praises of it. Modern, mobile, allows the inhabitants the freedom to follow their dreams…
on “Home in a Can: When Trailers Offered a Compact Version of the American Dream” ↗Steinbeck was the first serious novelist I got into as a kid, even read his collected letters, so I have a soft spot for him. It really shook my perception of his "journalistic" approach when I learned that Travels with Charley was almost entirely made up. Makes me wonder how much literary license he used in other books like A Russian Journal.
on “The Grapes of Wrath was banned in the USSR because showed poor people had cars” ↗It's funny, I was thinking about this recently while reading a (slightly embellished) John Steinbeck memoir called Travels with Charley: in Search of America. He wrote it when he decided to take a nationwide road trip in the early '60s, and it captured a lot of interesting anecdotes about the birth of modern American lifestyles. One…
on “The death of the private citizen?” ↗“You got to be awful rich to dress as bad as you do” ― John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley: In Search of America
on “Be Wary of Imitating High-Status People Who Can Afford to Countersignal” ↗You don't want to know. The quote is more commonly attributed to John Steinbeck, who also wrote a (somewhat embellished) memoir / #vanlife travelogue in 1962, called "Travels With Charley in Search of America".
on “The Anti-Productivity Manifesto” ↗I'm currently reading Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley in Search of America". He wrote it in 1960 and even then he remarks on how the US is quickly losing local dialects thanks to radio, television, and mass media.
on “American English Dialects” ↗That's a trend which has been emerging for a long time. Henry Miller's The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945) is an early take, this is a theme of John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley (1962), though Steinbeck was taking pains to avoid the then-brand-new Interstate Highway System. Two decades later, Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways chronicles a similar trip. Growth of both suburbs…
on “Dopamine Fracking” ↗Steinbeck too (Travels With Charley).
on “When Truman Capote’s Lies Caught Up with Him” ↗