Customer Reviews

Road Angels: Searching For Home On America's Coast of Dreams

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
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I loved ROAD ANGELS. I didn't want to put it down. Being a midwesterner transplanted to Los Angeles twenty years ago, I was curious to see how the author viewed the West Coast. I was surprised, delighted and moved as he made his journey from the Canadian border to San Luis Obispo. The images of the landscapes he passes through and his detailed and thoughtful portraits of the people he encounters compelled me to keep reading. Nerburn's reflections on his trip over the road and his journey through life made me pause and think about my own life; where I had been and where I was going. The conclusion that he draws from his conversations with three very different men in the San Francisco area is beautiful in its spiritual simplicity. As the book comes to an end I was moved to tears by his description of an act of kindness and closure.

This is a story that reveals in sensitive, insightful and often times humourous ways, the lives and longings of people we pass everyday. I thank the author for taking me along for the ride.

Read ROAD ANGELS. It is wonderful.

Very articulate and insightful reading. Authors use of the English language is artfully done. The book can be read on several levels from the mundane tasks of life to a much deeper sense . To me it is more about the dillemas we all face as human spiritual beings and how we try to make sense of that in a very material world. It has given me a new view of my life. I highly recommend it to anyone wishing for reading with some substance as well as enjoyment.

I just heard this author read in Ashland, Oregon. I did not know of him but his intelligence intrigued me so I bought the book. I think anyone who has ever relocated or contemplated a change in life should read this book. It is not only a wonderful read but a very profound examination of home and place. I will definitely recommend it to my most discriminating friends.

This book is incredible! It is about an American journey, an American spiritual journey. Kent Nerburn shares his clear-eyed, middle-aged return to the left coast. This book is a bittersweet sojourn. It is as if the middle-aged Kent had to discover whether a small town in the northwoods of Minnesota had his heart or if his soul required the spirits of the west coast. His story takes you to exultant heights of the wonders of the human spirit and of creation that will make your spirit sing, yet gently grounds you in the sometimes grim realities of life in the United States. Road Angels will strike a chord with all Midwesterners who fled to the coast during their youth; yet found that the roots of the middle called them home.

There are only a few writers I would follow to the ends of the earth. Louise Erdrich, Kathleen Norris, Kent Nerburn. I had read the first chapter of this book on Kent's website and I knew I had to have it. It's a book that makes you laugh and makes you think. I almost split a gut when he described Midwesterners in winter as being locked in a "cryogenic hysteria." I had to stop and think every few lines when he was describing how a small language allows people to animate the universe around them by giving names to individual trees and streams and rocks. I called my friends to read them his description of Big Sur as a Buddhist-still place, where the land and sky and sea sit in perfect balance, like gods gathered to discuss their individual domains. If you love night drives listening to distant radio stations, truck stops and cheap motels, and wonderful characters whose lives are wonderful stories, you'll love this book. If you ever dreamed of getting in your car and driving away from it all, you need this book. Buy it and read it. I guarantee you'll be calling your friends to share the insights and wonderful descriptions it contains.

This book is awesome! I love road books. This is one of the best. It is full of humor and mystery. You won't want to put it down! The way the author descibes people and places is incredible. One thing I didn't like was the title. It made me not want to read it. I thought it was going to be some new age junk. Boy was I wrong! When I was done I felt just like I had driven from Canada to San Francisco myself. The part about going up on Mount Saint Helens was great! The friends who told me about it live in Seattle. They said this book describes exactly why they live there. This is one of the best writers I have ever read! I think he is better than my other favorite, Larry McMurtry. :>

Kent Nerburn moved "out west" when he was in his twenties, for college and adventure; he eventually landed back in his native Minnesota, and in this book he revisits the West of his youth. I could not put this book down! I, too, moved out west in my twenties, for college and adventure; I, too, eventually landed back on my native east coast - but then I returned to the west and made it a home after all. I lived in many of the places Kent describes in this book and went through a lot of the same kind of angsts in those days of college and (mis)adventure. This book was like a guided tour of my own life in those times and places! Absolutely incredible ruminations about life's teachings; I was deeply moved by many passages in this book. It helps me understand a lot of what has motivated me in my life; it helps me understand why I found home out here. Beautiful writing as always from Kent, and another gem of a book. Easily his second best! As for his best book: Neither Wolf Nor Dog. Read them both!

Although others in my family have snatched the book away from me, my beginning reading of Road Angels filled me with relief and wonder at all that we in our 40s and 50s have lived through. I can't wait to delve further into K. Nerburn's experience of sorting through some of the geographical, personal, political and time-related events that in some respects are so universal and in others, so very personal. What a safe, yet real & insightful, way to re-experience "what a long, strange trip it's been".

Kent Nerburn's latest book is not only a road trip but a mind trip. It was a genuine pleasure to join Kent on his trek of re-discovery, and such are his descriptive and narrative talents, that the reader feels like a traveling companion -- as if Kent were telling you the story while you rode along in his car, or hoofed a trail beside him. His insights into American culture, human nature, and spirituality are keen and rewarding. This is a well-crafted book by an author who knows readers.

I read this book twice. It is either very confused or very brilliant. On the second reading I decided it was brilliant. This is a very penetrating analysis of some very big issues about what it means to be an American. Very poetic, too. Elusive and hard to categorize. Kind of travel, kind of cultural criticism. Weird religious overtones. This is a good writer, maybe a great one.