I savored this one--Great Plains by Ian Frazier.
It's a like Blue Highways (second greatest travel book of all time) with a theme. Ian Frazier crossed and criss-crossed the "American desert" both geographically and historically, creating a symphony of time and place. Past and present lie close to the surface, there--Crazy Horse, He Dog, and Little Big Man seem only a generation away. MX missiles sit at eternal alert in their carefully-tended silos. Founder's day in Nicodemus, the town that was supposed to be utopia for freed slaves stuck in ex-plantation poverty. The drought of 1934, when dust clouds from the great plains darkened cities on the eastern seaboard. The doomed expeditions of John Ledyard, who was supposed to be the first man to cross the continent. And more, much more.
Great book to carry on a road trip, but even better to read at home and take a road trip of the mind....
Just keep a map handy.
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