Riding with Strangers

Riding with Strangers
Author: Elijah Wald
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2006-05-01
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1569762376

This fascinating tale of the author's cross-country hitchhiking journey is a captivating look into the pleasures and challenges of the open road. As the miles roll by he meets businessmen, missionaries, conspiracy theorists, and truck drivers from all ages and ethnicities who are eager to open their car doors to a wandering stranger. This memoir uncovers the hidden reality that the United States remains hospitable, quirky, and as ready as ever to offer help to a curious traveler. Demonstrating how hitchhiking can be the ultimate in adventure travel—a thrilling exploration of both people and scenery—this guide also serves as a hitchhiker's reference, sharing the history behind this communal form of travel while touching on roadside lore and philosophy.

Carsick

Carsick
Author: John Waters
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2014-06-03
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0374709300

Carsick is the New York Times bestselling chronicle of a cross-country hitchhiking journey with America's most beloved weirdo. John Waters is putting his life on the line. Armed with wit, a pencil-thin mustache, and a cardboard sign that reads "I'm Not Psycho," he hitchhikes across America from Baltimore to San Francisco, braving lonely roads and treacherous drivers. But who should we be more worried about, the delicate film director with genteel manners or the unsuspecting travelers transporting the Pope of Trash? Before he leaves for this bizarre adventure, Waters fantasizes about the best and worst possible scenarios: a friendly drug dealer hands over piles of cash to finance films with no questions asked, a demolition-derby driver makes a filthy sexual request in the middle of a race, a gun-toting drunk terrorizes and holds him hostage, and a Kansas vice squad entraps and throws him in jail. So what really happens when this cult legend sticks out his thumb and faces the open road? His real-life rides include a gentle eighty-one-year-old farmer who is convinced Waters is a hobo, an indie band on tour, and the perverse filmmaker's unexpected hero: a young, sandy-haired Republican in a Corvette. Laced with subversive humor and warm intelligence, Carsick is an unforgettable vacation with a wickedly funny companion—and a celebration of America's weird, astonishing, and generous citizenry.

Hitchhiking

Hitchhiking
Author: Patrick Laviolette
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2020-09-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030482480

The first English-language social science book to comprehensively explore hitchhiking in the contemporary era in the West, this volume covers a lot of ground—it goes to and fro, in an echo of the modus operandi of most hitchhiking journeys. As scarification, piercings, and tattoos move from the counter-culture to popular culture, hitchhiking has remained an activity apart. Yet, with the assistance of virtual platforms and through its ever-growing memorialisation in literature and the arts, hitchhiking persists into the 21st century, despite the many social anxieties surrounding it. The themes addressed here thus include: adventure; gender; fear and trust; freedom and existential travel; road and transport infrastructures; communities of protest and resistance; civic surveillance and risk ecologies.

Alpha Status

Alpha Status
Author: Nathan Ikon Crumpton
Publisher: Independently Published
Total Pages: 554
Release: 2021-12-26
Genre:
ISBN:

If capitalism were a person, who would it be? Where would it live? Who, how, and what would it love? Dive into the salacious world of hedge funds, high finance, and penthouse sex dungeons. This raucous tale of a wildly successful New York fund manager and his globetrotting adventures reflects the stark new reality of contemporary uber-wealth, and the capitalist system which created it. Become enraptured with - or repulsed by - the heinously opulent world of the anonymous protagonist and his class of modern billionaires. But challenging the protagonist's high-flying escapades in finance and sexual conquest is his twin brother, a maudlin comparative literature professor and single father. With a life defined by tragedy, the brother becomes the countervailing voice of reason and social tranquility. Filled with equal parts fictitious plotline and broadly researched non-fiction sources, this book offers pointed analysis of the 21st century socio-economic landscape, and begs critical questions about how capitalism can try to reconcile its avaricious nature with a world demanding a more equitable division of resources. Enlightening yet critical. Serious yet absurd. Fictitious yet factual. This non-fiction novel provides graphic and unapologetic scrutiny from both extremes of the contemporary socio-economic spectrum.

Roadside Americans

Roadside Americans
Author: Jack Reid
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2020-02-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1469655012

Between the Great Depression and the mid-1970s, hitchhikers were a common sight for motorists, as American service members, students, and adventurers sought out the romance of the road in droves. Beats, hippies, feminists, and civil rights and antiwar activists saw "thumb tripping" as a vehicle for liberation, living out the counterculture's rejection of traditional values. Yet by the time Ronald Reagan, a former hitchhiker himself, was in the White House, the youthful faces on the road chasing the ghost of Jack Kerouac were largely gone—along with sympathetic portrayals of the practice in state legislatures and the media. In Roadside Americans, Jack Reid traces the rise and fall of hitchhiking, offering vivid accounts of life on the road and how the act of soliciting rides from strangers, and the attitude toward hitchhikers in American society, evolved over time in synch with broader economic, political, and cultural shifts. In doing so, Reid offers insight into significant changes in the United States amid the decline of liberalism and the rise of the Reagan Era.

Hitchhike America

Hitchhike America
Author: Jon Lott
Publisher: Ajax Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-09-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781732583108

Hitchhike America honestly recounts the humorous, adventure-filled, and unforgettable journey made by Jon Lott as he hitchhiked west across the United States.

Arkansas Hitchhike Killer, The: James Waybern "Red" Hall

Arkansas Hitchhike Killer, The: James Waybern
Author: Janie Nesbitt Jones
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 1467148172

Faulkner County native Red Hall was a serial killer who confessed to murdering at least twenty-four people. Most of his victims were motorists who picked him up as he hitchhiked around the United States. In the closing months of World War II, he beat his wife to death and went on a killing spree across the state. His signature smile lured his victims to their doom, and even after his capture, he maintained a friendly manner, being described by one lawman as "a pleasant conversationalist." Author Janie Nesbitt Jones chronicles his life for the first time and explores reasons why he became Arkansas's Hitchhike Killer.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Author: Douglas Adams
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2009-09-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0330513087

'One of the greatest achievements in comedy. A work of staggering genius' - David Walliams An international phenomenon and pop-culture classic, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has been a radio show, TV series, novel, stage play, comic book and film. Following the galactic (mis)adventures of Arthur Dent, Hitchhiker’s in its various incarnations has captured the imaginations of curious minds around the world . . . It's an ordinary Thursday lunchtime for Arthur Dent until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly afterwards to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and his best friend has just announced that he's an alien. At this moment, they're hurtling through space with nothing but their towels and an innocuous-looking book inscribed, in large friendly letters, with the words: DON'T PANIC. The weekend has only just begun . . . This 42nd Anniversary Edition includes exclusive bonus material from the Douglas Adams archives, and an introduction by former Doctor Who showrunner, Russell T Davies. Continue Arthur Dent's intergalactic adventures in the rest of the trilogy with five parts: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, and Mostly Harmless.

Round Ireland with a Fridge

Round Ireland with a Fridge
Author: Tony Hawks
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2001-03-07
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 9780312274924

Recounts the author's experiences hitchhiking on a bet all the way around Ireland with a small refrigerator, and shares his impressions of the people and places along the way.