{"product_id":"driving-home-an-american-journey-9780307379917","title":"Driving Home: An American Journey","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor more than thirty years  Jonathan Raban has written with infectious fascination about people and places in transition or on the margins  about journeys undertaken and destinations never quite reached  and  as an Englishman transplanted in Seattle  about what it means to feel rooted in America. Spanning two decades  Driving Home charts a course through the Pacific Northwest  American history  and current events as witnessed by a super-sensitive  all-seeing eye. Raban spots things we might otherwise miss; he calls up the apt metaphors that transform things into phenomena. He is one of our most gifted observers (Newsday).  Stops en route include a Missoula bar  a Tea Party convention in Nashville hosted by Sarah Palin  the Mississippi in full flood  a trip to Hawaii with his daughter  a steelhead river in the Cascades  and the hidden corners of his adopted hometown  Seattle. He deftly explores public and personal spaces  poetry and politics  geography and catastrophe  art and economy  and the shifts in various arenas that define our society. Whether the topic is Robert Lowell or Barack Obama  or how various painters  explorers  and homesteaders have engaged with our mythical and actual landscape  he has an outsiders eye for the absurd  and his tone is intimate  never nostalgic  and always fresh.  Frank  witty  and provocative  Driving Home is part essay collection  part diaryand irresistibly insightful about Americas character  contradictions  and idiosyncrasies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45279772409909,"sku":"ByrdShop_0307379914","price":33.26,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780307379917.jpg?v=1780609797","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/driving-home-an-american-journey-9780307379917","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}