Not all the essays are as compelling as some, but the writing is masterful. ( )

Well, how to describe 600 pages of unclassifyable personal memoirs, literary criticism (and visual art), sociological pieces and political statements, of historical chronicles and a bit of travel wrting thrown in? I can't, and maybe that is the problem I had with the collection itself. The writing, style, wittiness is pure Raban, as good as he comes (and that is good!), and many pieces are undeniably little gems (even though I can only comprehend his book rewievs after having read the book, and even then, often struggle) - even the political articles, now almost two terms behind, still ring true), but the combination and the sorting of the pieces resemble a thrift shop (Hey, let's put all the unsorted, unsortable writings together in a big'un to get some money out of them at all) , which doesn't normally do justice to little gems, does it? And since so much seems put in at random, there is a growing feeling of repetition as one guzzles up the pages. (After having read his other books, I feel I'm sufficiently informed about the social/geographical divide in Washington State or the hopelessness of homesteads in semi-arid regions and how they got there at all.
I have now exhausted, it seems, non-fictional (or semi-fictional, for his travel ewritings) Raban, but am reluctant to turn to his novels. Will the inventor of stories be as good as the observer was?

Although I enjoyed this book, I was glad I got it from the library rather than buying it, because more of the book than I thought reasonable consisted of a mishmash of unrelated book reviews and essays. But when on topic, I enjoyed Jonathan Raban's ruminations on his adopted home of Seattle, and on the wider Pacific Northwest. ( )

Paul wrote his Tao of Travel. This is Jonathan's.