Bicycle Diaries (Hardcover)

~ David Byrne (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Byrne is fascinated by cities, especially as visited on a trusty fold-up bicycle, and in these random musings over many years while cycling through such places as Sydney, Australia; Manila, Philippines; San Francisco; or his home of New York, the former Talking Head, artist and author (True Stories) offers his frank views on urban planning, art and postmodern civilization in general. For each city, he focuses on its germane issues, such as the still troublingly clear-cut class system in London, notions of justice and human migration that spring to mind while visiting the Stasi Museum in Berlin, religious iconography in Istanbul, gentrification in Buenos Aires and Imelda Marcos's legacy in Manila. In low-key prose, he describes his meetings with other artists and musicians where he played and set up installations, such as an ironic PowerPoint presentation to an IT audience in Berkeley, Calif. He notes that the condition of the roads reveals much about a city, like the impossibly civilized, pleasant pathways designed just for bikes in Berlin versus the fractured car-mad system of highways in some American cities, giving way to an eerie post apocalyptic landscape (e.g., Detroit). While stupid planning decisions have destroyed much that is good about cities, he is confident there is hope, in terms of mixed-use, diverse neighborhoods; riding a bike can aid in the survival of cities by easing congestion. Candid and self-deprecating, Byrne offers a work that is as engaging as it is cerebral and informative. (Sept.)
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From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Krista Walton Hitch a ride with Talking Heads frontman David Byrne as he bikes around Detroit, Istanbul, London, San Francisco, Manila, New York -- you name it. He cycles through cities bike-friendly and bike-hostile, musing on the myriad advantages (and disadvantages) of getting around on two wheels in places where, often, a man on a bike (a famous man, with shockingly white hair, no less) is a strange sight indeed. But, despite the title, this is no travel diary. Byrne's reflections are as varied as the countries he visits: He muses on everything from urban planning to bike helmets to art criticism to Latin music, often on his bike (but not always). Even if you don't own a bike and have no plans to mount one, you'll pedal through the pages of "Bicycle Diaries" in no time; the book is full of musings by a compelling eccentric. Example: "Self-censorship is part of being a social animal, and in that sense it's not always a bad thing." Byrne has recently taken on bicycling promotion as a pet project, organizing cycling events in his hometown of New York City and designing bike racks to encourage cyclists -- for environmental reasons, yes, but mostly because of the feeling of freedom biking affords. Readers who just want to learn more about arguably the best band of the '80s are in for a surprise: The art-school genius who told everyone to stop making sense has started making quite a lot of it.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1 edition (September 17, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670021148
• ISBN-13: 978-0670021147
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,189 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful views of our world, September 17, 2009

By	Kent Peterson "Kent Peterson" (Issaquah, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

David Byrne is a smart, funny, artistic sort of fellow whose talents, inclination and curiosity have led him all over the world. A few decades back, David discovered folding bicycles and since then he's ridden his bicycle along the side and back roads of many cities, riding, thinking, chatting, living life and seeing how it's lived in a wide range of places. His view of the world seen from a bicycle saddle gives him "glimpses into the mind of my fellow man, as expressed in the cities he lives in." Now, his meditations on people, places and the various ways we get along and get around are collected in his new book, Bicycle Diaries.

Bicycle Diaries is the best kind of art, a work that brings the reader along on the artist's journey. Bicycle Diaries is a physically beautiful book, hardcover with no dust-jacket, yellow embossed letters cheerfully identify the title and author while a black silhouette of a rider draws the reader forward. An observant reader will notice a tiny bicycle peeking out from the spine at the bottom of page 11 and on each odd page thereafter the bicycle has makes more progress. Fanning forward through the pages sets the tiny typeset bicycle free, racing across the pages in the oldest style animation, persistent vision holding tight to the bike while the pages blur past. Ever the artist, be it in music, lyric, print, or type, David remembers that a book can be more than just a file on a Kindle.

The tiny animation is just one example of the playful digressiveness of this book. While he casts a loving and critical look at the world, David is always conversational. He ponders, rants, muses and marvels. He reflects on how our cities reflect our minds. We build what we value, but our shaped world shapes those values. In an age where it seems that every celebrity has a publicist and a book that screams "look at me", David is instead riding his bike down interesting streets and pausing now and then to say "Hey, look at that!" He profiles interesting buildings, streets, people, cities and artists. He's structured the book as a series of chapters each concentrating on a city such as Berlin, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Sydney or New York, but the book is not a mere travelogue. In Manila, he uses the life story of Imelda Marcos as a springboard for contemplation of the way we each build the mythic stories of our lives. In Buenos Aires he considers geography, faith, death, music, art, unemployment, sex, the pack behavior of dogs, politics, football, gentrification, nightlife, and worker ownership. In every place he rides, he finds the unique and the common and connects the local with the global.

Bicycle Diaries is an intensely human and humane book, a book that echoes in print the sense of "My God, how did I get here?" that David expressed years ago in the Talking Heads. To an interesting person like David, all places are interesting and he consistently reminds us just how interesting humans are. We are the ones building the human world -- we don't just travel the world, we make it. David's work takes him out in the world, a world he shapes with songs and images. As he's ridden more, in more places, he's become more of a cycle activist, using his talents to shape the world to be friendlier to humans and bicycles. He's designed and installed bike racks in New York City, he thinks about helmet design and he works with transportation planners. And most importantly, he's written a wonderful book, a book that reveals the simple delight of riding a bike through an amazing world.

38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This should have been a New Yorker article, October 18, 2009

By	Col des Aravis (Annecy, France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bicycle Diaries (Kindle Edition)

David Byrne is an enormously creative and thoughtful composer, artist and performer. He's also a cyclist and a world traveler which makes him a kindred soul. These attributes prompted me to buy the Kindle edition of the book and, while my expectations were not very high, this book probably should have remained a magazine article. In the acknowledgments David says it was a publisher/editor who convinced him that there was a book here and the author would have done well to ignore the advice. It is really a collection of thoughts inspired by David's bike rides in cities around the world and, while it is modestly entertaining, the thoughts inspired by his two-wheeled meandering are not particularly original or earth-shaking. I found myself abandoning the book about half-way through which is something I almost never do. The writing itself is not bad, but I just don't think he has enough to say to make this work as a book. I remain a David Byrne fan and I'll look out for his next effort, but I wouldn't recommend buying the book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Recreation, October 11, 2009

By	Jason Klein (Rochester, MN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is super fun to read. Hang out in David Byrne's front pocket as he travels the world and shares his perceptions about the hidden dynamics behind the socio-political environments of world cities. He somehow perfectly captures the moods and vibes of these places while sharing his interesting personal opinions of current affairs along the way. A leisurely read that I highly recommend.