No.7

The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency
by Alexander McCall Smith

No.6

Shopgirl
by Steve Martin

No.5

1280 Almas
by Jim Thompson

No.4

El cartero llama dos veces
by James M. Cain

No.3

Maurice
by E.M. Forster

No.2

Daisy, Daisy
by Christian Miller

This book is subtitled ''A journey across America on a bicycle'', but it´s not just that, really. It is a travel memoir of an English grandmother who decided to cross the United States from Virginia to Oregon on a fold-up three-speed bicycle (which she names Daisy) just because. She didn´t prepare for it physically, but she spent a lot of time deciding exactly what to bring because of the weight limits for luggage. She did this methodically & anally, which is pretty fantastic. The foto on the back of the book jacket shows her smiling on Daisy, a tiny bicycle with the handle bars below the waistline. Doesn´t look very comfortable, but she does.

She traveled through Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, & Oregon. She mostly traveled this way on her bicycle, but sometimes accepted rides from people. She camped in fields along the roads most of the time, but at times she slept in hotels, motels, or in the houses of nice people she met along the way. She took photographs of her bicycle with backdrops of such things as the Rockies. She bycicled through rain, snow, dust storms, almost a tornado. She was pretty determined to get through it all.

She writes about some of the interesting people she met along the way, how American coffee is basically brown water, even has a chapter mostly describing Mormons & their huge church in Salt Lake City. She writes in a happy way, even while describing how she accidentally dropped Daisy down a small cliff in the Rockies. While bringing everything back up, the soles on her shoes came unattached, then she put her socks over her shoes to keep them together, which led to wet socks, which led to shoe air-conditioning. She tells the happy times & the frustrating times in the same way, but different tones. It lets you know that she was grateful for her journey, doing something that not many people like her would have done or will ever do.

It´s a quite charming story if you can get past her innocent view that all Americans are welcoming & hospitable, & the fact that she mentioned a town in Wyoming with an attractive name but never stated the name. It reminds me of a road trip I took once across the States, although I found no hospitality, & would rather have been alone like Miller. It gave me the travel bug, which I rather not have right now for lack of funds to do so. Maybe one day I´ll get a bicycle & head off into the unknown.

Good book.