WENDOVER: Real Magic Books

Tuesday 10th December, 2024

6:30pm

Event information

Really looking forward to this one. We are joined by Simon Parker to talk about his latest book and epic journey, A Ride Across America. A night of adventure, with stories, maps, films and readings, followed by a Q&A.

Frustrated by the shallow headlines focusing only on Trump, guns and division, award-winning travel writer Simon Parker decided that to better understand the USA, he would have to travel across it, slowly.

He wanted to see if the America of his teenage dreams existed. Or was it really as divided as it can often seem from afar? What better time to do it than in the months leading up to the next election. Travelling through eleven states, Simon explores epic wildernesses, mountains and long, straight roads, but meets hundreds of ordinary people behind the click-bait news posts.

Travelling determinedly, tag teamed by inquisitive birds of prey, staying with old acquaintances in towns and farmlands, visiting rodeos, churches, cook-outs and diners, Simon found a land and a people of huge generosity, but also of immense consumption, poverty and disenfranchisement. A land whose portrayal has become vastly over-simplified and underestimated.

A fascinating – and frequently funny – tale of one man cycling the breadth of America.