Travels With Charley is a book about a 1960 road trip that Steinbeck took in order to get a pulse on America and its people. If you read the book, here's a good place to start. There is some speculation that he fictionalized the book and most of it's not even true. He definitely went on the road trip, but a first draft of the book included his wife, while the final manuscript, he went alone. There are details in the book that couldn't be true. And the conversations he's purported to have seem literarily tweaked.
Even if Steinbeck took "literary freedoms", this was a good book. Funny, clever, and just plain good story telling. Because it's a book about stories and not main characters or any kind of plot so to speak, I listened to it on CD. I felt like Steinbeck was right in the car with me telling me his stories.
It did get a little tedious at the end of the book, but the beginning and middle were great. Overall, I'd say that I enjoyed the book, but probably wouldn't recommend it to everyone. Some types who might enjoy this book are: dog lovers, men, literary types, people watchers, and those not looking for a page turner.
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