Way Off the Road

April 30, 2007
CBS roving correspondent and author Geist offers up an amusing and expansive collection of America's quirky, strange and offbeat nooks. The "Land of Lost Luggage" in Scottsboro, Ala., for instance, is where the millions of bags airlines "lose" every year wind up and "every day is like Christmas" for the locals. In New Glarus, Wis., photographer Kathy DeBruin has a reputation as the "Annie Leibovitz of cow portraiture." And then there's Boston's Museum of Dirt, where, among other amazing dirt is a display of dirt taken from Barry Manilow's driveway. While mirth is in plentiful supply, some of Geist's stories are real nail biters, such as his trip via mule train to deliver mail to the Havasupai Native American tribe. (Its members live on the floor of the Grand Canyon.) Geist's low key, deadpan humor hits the mark, and he has a gentle way of writing just to the point of ridicule before he backs off. Readers will find nearly 30 tales that will amaze and amuse and maybe inspire some extra stops on their next road trip.

May 1, 2007
Why does the Midwest seem to have more colorful characters than the rest of the country? Emmy Award-winning correspondent and commentator Geist ("Little League Confidential") profiles the unique characters, animals, and pastimes of small-town America. Some of the stories will be familiar to fans of his segments on "CBS News Sunday Morning", but others are new and definitely of the laugh-out-loud variety. Join Geist as he interviews an entrepreneur who has a successful business vacuuming prairie dogs out of the ground with a used sewer-cleaning truck; discover what happens at a festival dedicated to a headless chicken; and tag along as he searches for new dining pleasures: "In rural Kansas, I asked our motel desk clerk for the name of the best restaurant in the area. After mulling it over, he answered: 'I'd have to say the Texaco, 'cuz the Shell don't have no microwave.'" Geist genuinely delights in his finds, and readers will, too. Recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/15/07.]Susan Belsky, Oshkosh P.L., WI

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2007
This year marks Geists twentieth anniversary as an on-air correspondent for the CBS News program Sunday Morning, and by way of celebration, he marks the occasion with this witty, good-natured exploration of small-town America. When Geist says small town, he means small: one of the places he visists, Hanlontown, Iowa, has a population of 229. Yet the place is lively enough to have its annual Sundown Days, which celebrate the fact that, on the summer solstice, the sun sets on the railroad tracks. Then theres Loyalton, California (population 817), whose paperboy, age 92, delivers the paper from an airplane, sort of dive-bombing his subscribers. (Hes a younger cousin of the Wright brothers.) Not all of the places Geist visits are quite so smallChattanooga, Tennessee, has 154,762 residentsbut they are all just as interesting (Chattanooga is home to the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame Museum). Geist, as usual, writes in a friendly, slightly off-kilter tone, pointing out these unusual places with their unusual people but never quite making fun of them.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)