cover image Way Off the Road: Discovering the Peculiar Charms of Small Town America

Way Off the Road: Discovering the Peculiar Charms of Small Town America

Bill Geist. Broadway Books, $23.95 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-7679-2272-2

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.