 Customer Reviews
Appleby is a god!, 30 Oct 2006
Witty, daft and extremely funny. Steven Appleby has outdone even himself!
Good stuff., 25 Jun 2005
First, I should just admit that I'm a contributor to the book, so I admittedly have a bit of a bias. But I was truly impressed by the quality of the book layout itself, as well as the quality of the writing. There's a huge range of stories, from a few sentences to several pages, and the types of experiences people have had hitchhiking pretty much covers the entire range of possibility. Some of them (including almost the entire section of "Bad Trips") are downright scary. Most of the book, however, is people telling their positive experiences getting from Point A to Point B by thumbing a lift. And those experiences are not of the usual variety, even by traveling standards. If you want to read some unique, genuine, inspiring, and down-to-earth travel accounts, then I'd definitely recommend this book. There is, literally, nothing else like it on the bookshelves right now. Who would have thought that a member of British Parliament, a Nobel prize winner, Janis Joplin's guitarist, an arctic explorer, mainstream magazine editors, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons, and assorted everyday travelers (such as myself) would be featured in the same collection of stories? Pretty cool stuff.
Let's hitch again, 22 Jun 2005
This is a great read - so many varied stories - (one a cartoon!) on what I believed was a defunct activity. Now I find out that it is alive and kicking around the world and still somehow undertaken in the same spirit as in the past. The contributors are a mix people from all walks of life - the more well-known are (refreshingly),not the run-of-the-mill 'celebs', but people who were shaped by their hitching experiences and who can obviously write too.
The book has neatly brought together the past and the present and offers perhaps some kind of idea of how sharing and cooperation might benefit us in the future, not just in transport terms but in the greater sense. It is a book which entertains, informs and provokes thought - what else could you want from a book?
Good fun, 17 Jun 2005
I loved this. Good trips, bad trips, strange encounters (Mike Leigh and a cross-dresser!) I thought every story was great. I have not ever hitch hiked before but I may now try it, I will see!
At last!, 12 Jun 2005
At last - a book on hitchhiking tales! I've been looking for this for years - why on earth hasn't it been done sooner? Having been on this quest for such a long time I was greatly relieved that this book doesn't disappoint. The good thing about it is that it covers good adventures as well as bad - all part of the hitchhiking experience. Some of the tales are hilarious - read Doug Stanhope's!. It includes tales from journalists and muscians to carpenters and dairy farmers and all the adventures recounted are highly entertaining. Most importantly it restored my faith in the human spirit - not everyone has become as selfish and unwilling to share as I'd dreaded. You never know, perhaps I'll dust off my thumb and stick it out once more!
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