Next Hurricane

With cyclonic season officially entered, nothing weathers whirlwind days hunkered down without electronics, or otherwise lounging on beaches away from plugs, like a printed book. Several worthwhile choices include:

Brent Kitching, A Bicycle Without A Chain (iUniverse, 2016, 332 pp.). Just out, biographical novel pits chasing capitalism against cultivating a higher consciousness. Oh, my!

Buzz Ponce, A Long Ride Coming: How the Struggle of Losing a Parent Led to a Bicycle Journey Nearly 50 Years Later (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016, 336 pp.)

Cristina Spínola Taller de Felicidad (The Workshop of Happiness, self, 2016, 87 pp.). Author describes adventures of a woman touring Latin America alone by bike.

Daniel Shea and Jeremy Withers, editors, Culture on Two Wheels: The Bicycle in Literature and Film (University of Nebraska Press, 2016, 366 pp.). Well anticipated accessible set of scholarly essays follows the 125 years of evolving symbolism that this "favored ideological steed" conjures. Shea’s own covers Ai Weiwei’s famous bicycle sculptures.

David Herlihy, Bicycle: The History (Yale University Press, 2004, 480 pp.), Previously mentioned his The Lost Cyclist. In The Guardian, Rob Penn recently gave a Eurocentric top ten of books about bikes, which included Herlihy’s History and others hitherto overlooked. How can it be that Kent Peterson’s best list on Outside Online, except for Herlihy’s, is completely different?

DK (Dorling and Kindersley), Bicycle: The Definitive Visual History (Penguin Random House, 2016, 256 pp.). With a magazine approach, celebrates commerce, designs, makers, and racers from graphic, journal and published evidence.

James Runcie, Grantchester, Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (Bloomsbury USA, 2012, 400 pp.). In the mold of Chesterson’s character Father Brown, sleuth/vicar Sidney Chambers rides a bike around Cambridgeshire in 1950’s England while solving crimes. Made into a PBS series for Masterpiece Mystery!

Jobst Brandt, The Bicycle Wheel (Avocet, 1993, 150 pp.)

Mike Magnuson, Heft on Wheels: A Field Guide to Doing a 180 (Three Rivers Press, 2005, 252 pp.). Highlights losing weight and regaining health through self propulsion.

Travis Hugh Culley, The Immortal Class: Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2001, 352 pp.)

Blue Bicycle Books, a shop located in Charleston, South Carolina, hosts a creative Summer writing camp for kids to get them into good habits.