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Title: Charles Kuralt's America
ISBN: 067179745X
Author:
Publicate Date: 1995-11-01
Publish: 1995-11-01
List Price: $25.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Audio Cassette
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.64
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.43
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| Customer Review: |
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1: The Hobo Philosopher
I'm easy on this one. I like Charles Kuralt and I like travel books. I wrote my own travel Book "Hobo-ing America". When I compare my book to his it is easy to see the difference in personalities and "class". Charles Kuralt really writes middle class travel books. He is really not "Route 66", blue collar or working class material. But I understand. You really have to write books for those who can afford to buy them - though Jack Kerouac did pretty well. Charles made a commercial success of his love to travel and he always does it with style, good prose and I would even say poetry. I will always read Charles Kuralt. This book is in the latter part of his career when he was older and even wiser - if that is possible.
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2: A good but not great book
I did enjoy this book, but there were parts where I lost interest. Kuralt gives a lot of detail about the people he meets, but sometimes I didn't get as many details as I would have liked about the actual place he visited. In all, it is a book worth reading-- especially if you like to hear stories about individual characters.
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3: "He looked up at a towering tree,and dared to think small."
If you've enjoyed Charles Kuralt over the years ,you'll love this book.In 255 pages we are treated to 120 stories about interesting,famous,familiar,personal,human intrest stories and just about anything you might come across if you travelled America as Kuralt did and told us about for so many years.What you should really get from this book is that there is this type of thing all around us,no matter where you go or where you live.One doesn't have to spend their coin,or line up with crowds to see interesting things or meet interesting people.Everyone has a story to tell and every place has it's unusual or interesting points of interest.I have been a long time follower of Ripley's Believe It or Not! ;and that is what Ripley did as he travelled the world to find the unbelievable,unusual,strange or otherwise interesting.
The book will provide a great read for anyone interested in people or things,whether they are young,middle-aged or in their senior years.
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4: Kuralt a Genius
Charles Osgood called Kuralt "The only genius that television news ever produced." I'll go with that. People were surprised when Kuralt retired abruptly. We later learned that he was in the process of succumbing to a fatal disease. So Kuralt was not just touring America, he was saying good bye to it. It is a brilliant work.
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5: Third age vagabond
Charles Kuralt reads his own work on the audiobook. It seems like he had a lot of fun traveling around the country. People knew him, and then offered to show him around, for example, fly over a glacier in Alaska or have a special interview with a noted saddle maker in New Mexico.
It's nice that he had the money and means to do these things, a kind of third age "On the Road" adventure, but of course without the drugs and revels of Kerouac. And no Cody.
Maybe this was more like Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley."
In fact, Charles is so discreet, he even rebuffs a woman of possible ill repute in Key West. Oh ye of great faith!
But he hardly ever mentions his wife, maybe once or twice at the end. Was she happy just sitting at home? Or maybe she was traveling elsewhere? Anyway, I think it's too bad they could not have traveled together.
It was sad, though, when his father died, even though his father was pretty old (late 80s I think).
Of all the places he visited, I think I did like Key West best, because that was really the place that was furthest away from the American mainstream, except maybe Alaska, and I would prefer to travel outside of the country than in. From Key West, of course, you can get to the Caribbean countries pretty easily. What if he had done that? Diximus.
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