Bicycle Diaries

CanCan, 07 October 2009,
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: books, review

I was excited to have the chance to read David Byrne’s travel reflections in his new book Bicycle Diaries.
I will admit that I had to do a search and find pictures of a folding bicycle so that I would know what Byrne was working with.
David Byrne. Does that name ring a bell? You might know him as part of the music group Talking Heads, but he has also been honored for other musical and artistic achievements, collecting Grammy, Oscar, and Golden Globe awards.

Bicycle Diaries is a beautiful hardbound book, the title embossed on the cover. I do, very frequently, judge books by their outer aesthetic. Another neat feature of the book not related to the actual writing is that a small bicycle is at the bottom of each page. The progression of the bicycle creates a fun flip book effect, which I was always trying to achieve with my secondary school vocab workbook.

Bicycle Diaries is a compilation of observations made by David Byrne as he explores a variety of world cities on bicycle.

He doesn’t ride TO them on the bike; he uses a folding bicycle to ride through the cities.

Byrne makes the case several times over that being on bicycle allows him to connect with people and places in a more intimate way than traveling by car. I have to agree.

I haven’t bicycled through all of the cities of the world, but I have noted a big difference in *experiencing* a new place on the back of a motorbike or three-wheeled taxi vs. shut up inside the airconditioned fortress of an automobile.

Byrne takes us through some wonderful cities, including Berlin, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, San Francisco, and Manilla.

Bicycle Diaries isn’t a travel guide; instead it reminded me of the conversations that seasoned travelers love to have with each other. What is good about a place, what is new, what needs to change, and how things work.

If you can’t ang out in a hostel with backpackers all day, I would recommend giving Bicycle Diaries a read instead.

Thank you to Viking Press for giving me an advanced reader’s copy of Bicycle Diaries. They didn’t give me any money, but I am grateful all the same. I just like books that much. <-That is what they call “disclosure”.

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