The Last Open Road

A year out of high school in the early 1950s, New Jersey mechanic Buddy Palumbo falls in love with two things at once: race car driving with its speed and adventure, and his boss' niece, Miss Julie Finzio

In his first novel, Burt Levy captures the atmosphere of a more innocent era in America--the early fifties--a time when the horizon seemed open and anything was possible, when enthusiasts raced European sports cars in open-road races around Bridgehampton, Elkhart Lake, and Watkins Glen, races that crackled with excitement, fun, adventure, and an omnipresent danger.

A masterful and hilarious novel of open road sports car racing and falling in love with the boss's niece in 1950s America In his first novel, Burt Levy captures the atmosphere of a more innocent era in America, the early '50s -- a time when the horizon seemed open and anything was possible, when enthusiasts raced European sports cars in open-road races in Bridgehampton, Elkhart Lake, and Watkins Glen, races that crackled with excitement, fun, adventure, and an omnipresent danger. Levy tells the story of Buddy Palumbo -- a year out of high school and working as a mechanic at the Sinclair station in Passaic, New Jersey -- as he discovers the twin loves of his life: Miss Julie Finzio and sports car racing. Surrounded by a Dickensian cast of characters exuberant with life, Buddy is caught up in a series of adventures that rival those of Augie March -- as he learns what it means to be a man in an America that seems almost unrecognizable today. Fast-paced, funny, and utterly absorbing, Buddy Palumbo's story will enchant readers with a vision of being young in America's last age of innocence.

Policing the Open Road examines how the rise of the car, that symbol of American personal freedom, inadvertently led to ever more intrusive policing--with disastrous consequences for racial equality in our criminal justice system. When Americans think of freedom, they often picture the open road. Yet nowhere are we more likely to encounter the long arm of the law than in our cars. Sarah Seo reveals how the rise of the automobile transformed American freedom in radical ways, leading us to accept--and expect--pervasive police power. As Policing the Open Road makes clear, this expectation has had far-reaching political and legal consequences.--

A historical novel about open road sports car racing and growing up in the early 1950's. Montezuma's Ferrari is the direct sequel to The Last Open Road (ISBN# 0-9642107-2-X), which is heading into its fourth printing and has become a cult classic on the motor sports scene. Copies of early reviews of Montezuma's Ferrari attached.

Sarah Dessen gets a road trip twist in Emery Lord's debut novel, a summer story of love and true friendship. "A fabulously entertaining story of friendship, healing, and love." --Elizabeth Eulberg, author of Better Off Friends and Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality After breaking up with her bad-news boyfriend, Reagan O'Neill is ready to leave her rebellious ways behind. . . and her best friend, country superstar Lilah Montgomery, is nursing a broken heart of her own. Fortunately, Lilah's 24-city tour is about to kick off, offering a perfect opportunity for a girls-only summer of break-up ballads and healing hearts. But when Matt Finch joins the tour as its opening act, his boy-next-door charm proves difficult for Reagan to resist, despite her vow to live a drama-free existence. This summer, Reagan and Lilah will navigate the ups and downs of fame and friendship as they come to see that giving your heart to the right person is always a risk worth taking. A fresh voice in contemporary romance, Emery Lord's gorgeous writing hits all the right notes.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • For Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, “an exceptionally intimate portrait” (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love) of the Dalai Lama—one of the most singular figures of our time. For over three decades, Pico Iyer, one of our most cherished travel writers, has been a friend to the Dalai Lama. Over these years through intimate conversations, he has come to know him in a way that few can claim. Here he paints an unprecedented portrait of the Dalai Lama, explaining his work and ideas about politics, science, technology, and religion. The Open Road illuminates the hidden life and the daily challenges of this global icon.

After the end of World War II, the American road trip began appearing prominently in literature, music, movies, and photography. Many photographers embarked on trips across the U.S. in order to create work, including Robert Frank, whose seminal 1955 road trip resulted in The Americans. However, he was preceded by Edward Weston, who traveled across the country taking pictures to illustrate Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass; Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose 1947 trip through the American South and into the West was published in the early 1950s in Harper's Bazaar; and Ed Ruscha, whose road trips between Los Angeles and Oklahoma later became Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Hundreds of photographers have continued the tradition of the photographic road trip on down to the present, from Stephen Shore to Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs. The Open Road considers the photographic road trip as a genre in and of itself, and presents the story of photographers for whom the American road is muse. The book features David Campany's introduction to the genre and eighteen chapters presented chronologically, each exploring one American road trip in depth through a portfolio of images and informative texts, highlighting some of the most important bodies of work made on the road from The Americans to present day.