Last Wednesday’s post was the 100th book review published on this blog. Eight were of my own books and one (Book Review (not really), A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving) was, as the title proclaims, not really a review of the actual book. Still, that leaves 91 legitimate reviews of books I didn’t write and that’s many more than I anticipated when I posted the first review in November of 2011. The blog was just about three months old then. The About page says that the most likely subjects of books reviewed are “…those related to something I personally like such as old roads or cars.” That first review (Ghost Town of Route 66) clearly fits and I think the 100th (Walking to Listen) does too. It’s not about a particular road but it is about being “on the road” which seems close enough. Besides, the phrase is “such as old roads or cars” not “exclusively old roads and cars”. The truth is anything “I personally like” is fair game.
When I wrote that “old roads or cars” line, I expected the bulk of my reviews to involve one or the other but that has not been the case. An imprecise classification effort found only 5 reviews of books about or featuring cars. There were 32 about roads which means that 63 were about neither.
I was not surprised to see that only 9 of the books I reviewed were fiction. Books are either fiction or not but they can appear in more than one of my arbitrary subject categories. Those counts are:
- 37 – history
- 32 – road
- 25 – memoir
- 16 – photo
- 15 – guide
- 12 – travelog
- 5 – cars
- 1 – physics
I won’t even attempt a “Best of” lists but I do have some “Most Memorable” picks. That I picked several photo books did not surprise me but seeing that three of my picks involved motorcycles was unexpected. No Room for Watermelons tells of Ron Fellowes’ ride through fifteen countries on a 1910 motorcycle. Hues of my Vision, by Ara Gureghian, and The World from My Bike, by Anna Grechishkina, visually document their authors’ life on the road over several years. Living on 3 wheels (a sidecar carried his dog) ended for Ara when back problems made it impossible to ride. Anna’s travels were interrupted when her homeland was invaded and she returned to Ukraine to help in its defense. I hope with all my heart that there is a sequel.
I clearly have a weakness for photo books but these two are also road books. In 2004, Joe Hurley took the steps and Travis Lindhorst took the pictures for Ten Million Steps on Route 6. Three of Route 66’s finest (Shellee Graham, Jim Ross, and Jerry McClanahan) collaborated on Route 66 Sightings which might be the best advertisement for a decommissioned highway you’ll ever see.
Every member of the trio responsible for Route 66 Sightings turns out plenty of exceptional solo work. Most of it is connected to Route 66 but this book from Jim Ross is an exception. It’s the story of his time in Vietnam. In my review, I said of Jim that, “What he does do is bring veteran skills to the telling of a rookie’s story.” I think that’s why this book is so memorable to me.
This is one of the five “car books” I counted. The car is a 1926 Model T that carries Darlene Dorgan and her friends on some wonderful adventures in the 1930s. Darlene’s Silver Streak tells of those adventures as well as the car’s modern-day restoration and display. I bought the book when I first saw the car on display which is probably part of the reason I find it memorable.
The count will not stop at one hundred, of course. In fact, a couple more are already in the works. One is sort of about a road. The other is not. I really see no reason to expect the mix of topics to change much in the future except for a probable decrease in the number of physics books reviewed.
Everything went up this year. Everything that is except interest. I’ll discuss website traffic toward the end of this post but it’s probably not much of a spoiler to note that it continues its general decline. As for my own activity, I did get in one more trip than last year, and, unlike last year’s added trip, this one did translate to an increase in days on the road and pictures posted. Again, no trips from the year being reviewed made the top five but, unlike 2022 when there were no repeats from the previous year, the first four of 2023’s top five were repeats from 2022 and the fifth sort of was. Two of 2022’s top five blog posts made it again this year along with two brand new posts and one returning after an unusual absence. 
For the third year in a row, the first topic mentioned in the year-end review is COVID-19. On one hand, its grip on travel was loosened a bit and some postponed trips and events were allowed to take place. On the other, the virus had its most personal impact on me yet. In the middle of a trip, I tested positive for COVID-19 myself and, although the symptoms were quite mild, the trip was effectively over at that point. I drove directly home and isolated. Evidence of the loosening of COVID’s grip is the increase in my personal trip count but none of those trips were particularly long so days on the road and the number of photos posted from road trips both decreased. None of the 2022 trips generated enough traffic to make the top five non-blog posts and none of last year’s top five non-blog posts returned this year. A personal post noting my own birthday was the most visited new blog post of the year.
I know it’s a sign of a desperate search to find something nice to say, but I’ll say it anyway: 2020 makes 2021 look good. But COVID-19 continued to impact our lives greatly and to end far too many of them. In the U.S., deaths attributed to the virus in 2021 actually exceeded those of 2020 and the total has passed 800,000. Worldwide, that number is near 5.5 million. The United States has already passed its death count for the 1918 flu pandemic (675.000) while the worldwide count has a long way to go to hit the most conservative estimates for 1918 (12 million). Explain that to yourselves as best you can. My personal trip count doubled (from 2 to 4) and days of travel tried to do so (30 to 51). Two of the 2021 trip journals made the top five as did the blog entry for one of them. The most visited new blog post was one remembering Larry Goshorn who died in September.
It might be nice if 2020, like Dracula, simply did not appear in mirrors — rear view or otherwise — but the truth is, we’re going to be reflecting on this strange year a lot and for a long time. In last year’s Rear View post, I lamented a drop in travel. Trips, days on the road, and pictures posted were all down, but those were the good old days. This year the counts didn’t just drop, they plummeted. I do not, of course, have to guess at the cause. It is clearly the shutdowns and precautions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that becoming a factor in mid-March, I had 2020 identified as a big travel year with plans for two major trips and several of medium-size. In the end, only one of the major trips and a single small trip actually took place. The top five trip journal entries were again for major trips including one repeat from last year. Neither 2020 trip made it. Only one new blog post made the top five and that was at the bottom behind four posts that were at least five years old.
Trips, days on the road, and pictures posted are all down and I believe it can all be blamed on that July through September gap when a variety of life’s activities kept me off the road and close to home. The slight uptick in blog posts comes from me doing a couple more reviews this year than last. Two of those new-for-2019 blog posts join three oldies in the top five list. For the second year in a row, all of the top five trip journal entries were for major trips which is the way I always thought it should be. One was even a 2019 outing.
I was on the road for the same number of days this year as last but packed them into three less trips. The three less trips account for half of the drop in blog posts with one less Sunday and two less reviews accounting for the rest. I posted a few less pictures from trip journals but more than made up for it with a significant increase in the number of pictures posted in the blog. There were no new-for-2018 blog posts in the top five but a new-for-2018 trip journal entry crabbed the top slot on the non-blog list.
