Travels in a Strange State by Josie Dew Reviewed By Steve Rudd

A man called Jonathan Raban once said, The only way to travel is to travel alone. It opens you up to the world. It puts you in the way of luck and chance. With such a sentiment Josie Dew whole-heartedly agrees, as do I. This fantastically written book is a hugely insightful travelogue of Josie's time spent cycling across America, from west coast to east, coupled with explorations around a number of Hawaiian islands on the side. Forever highlighting the dangers of being a travelling single white female (just like Sue Hamilton in her Accidental Traveller journal), this book is still so enthusiastically written that it makes you want to get out there in the big wide world and do much the same as she has done.

Cycling in the US, as she discovers, is nothing like cycling in Britain. First and foremost, hardly anybody cycles anywhere across the pond, and she barely sees another soul on a bike all the time she's across there. Thus, There was none of that sense of community which is found in any European town or city. You couldn't trot down to a corner shop to pick up a paper or a pint of milk or swap a bit of gossip with the locals - the nearest shops were a car ride away. Indeed, just about everything in the US is geared towards people driving cars. Everywhere. The mall was all or nothing. Nor did people pass the time of day on street corners or cross the road to greet friends, anymore than people in Britain chat on the M1/ M25 intersection. It's not that this lack of streetlife cohesion is necessarily wrong; it's just different and strangely sad. Wherever Josie is writing about, she deftly sets her experiences in such a place up against other fascinating facts that might have occurred thereabouts. For instance, when she's talking about her cycling travels in Hawaii she relates the fact that Captain Cook couldn't swim (or so it is alleged), despite having sailed from England all the way across there! Equipped with a bunch of fantastic photos and quirky sketches, Travels In A Strange State is a both a vibrantly funny and thoroughly inspirational read. ISBN 0-316-90945-9 (first published in Britain in 1994; LITTLE, BROWN)

Reviews, Theatre - Confessions Of A Hull City Supporter at Hull Truck By Nicholas Boldock
	There must be few examples of award-winning playwrights penning an entire play to celebrate a football team winning promotion, even if that promotion took 19 long years to arrive. After Hull City won promotion from Division 3 last term, local writer Alan Plater Read more...

Reviews, Books - Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints. Which, I presume, means that Sedaris (who is both a highly respected playwright and author) really Read more...

Reviews, Books - The Hard Shoulder by Chris Petit By Steve Rudd
	Focusing on how a fresh-out-of-prison man copes and slowly re-adjusts to life on the outside, The Hard Shoulder is an exceptional novel - and primarily enthralling for being both a thriller and poignant drama. O'Grady is the man who has been released from prison Read more...

Reviews, Books - Running With The Moon by Jonny Bealby By Steve Rudd
	I was the pebble in the catapult, pulled back to breaking point, about to be sent hurtling towards whatever destiny had in store. Total freedom. At that moment I wouldn't have changed places with anyone. That's how Jonny Bealby felt upon arriving in Africa with his friend Read more...

Reviews, Theatre - Confessions Of A Hull City Supporter at Hull Truck By Nick Quantrill
	Written by Hull City fanatic, Alan Plater, and with male characters played by actors from Hull, it would be easy to write this play off as being a parochial Fever Pitch. Whilst it's definitely a home banker, the structure of the play holds enough laughs to get a result away from home. Read more...

Reviews, Books - David Bowie: Theatre of Music by Robert Matthew-Walker By Steve Rudd
	Although this book was published way back in 1985, it still provides a fascinating insight into David's personal life and his music up to such a point in time, giving a summary of the circumstances around his birth and childhood before naturally progressing onto how he first became interested Read more...

Reviews, Books - A Cold Day In Paradise by Steve Hamilton, By Steve Rudd
	Steve Hamilton's incredibly exciting writing vibrantly blasts out of much the same gun-toting gauntlet as Joe R Lansdale's writing, despite the fact that both these American action-thriller novelists couldn't really live farther apart from the other. Lansdale lives and sets Read more...

Reviews, Books - The Goodbye People by Gavin Lambert, By Steve Rudd
	Loneliness doesn't consist of not having friends. Loneliness has nothing to do with that! It's being unable to express your deepest feelings and most private thoughts. This novel is one of my favourite pieces of fiction, with the author Lambert's fresh writing style zestfully spurting in Read more...

Reviews, Books - Cold In July by Joe R. Lansdale, By Steve Rudd
	This Texan author is surely one of the hottest 'action-thriller' writers of his generation. An expert in martial arts himself, his stories are always graced with superb plots and graphically violent action set-pieces that he describes so well I would have thought movie producers in Hollywood Read more...

Reviews, Books - Big Sur by Jack Kerouac By Steve Rudd
	It's the little things that count. On my deathbed I could be remembering that creek day and forgetting the day MGM bought my book. Another classic novel from Beat-generation master Kerouac, Big Sur brings the reader up to speed on how the writer Read more...

Reviews, Books - Hemingway's Chair by Michael Palin By Steve Rudd
	Bearing in mind that Michael Palin has literally travelled around the world and back (and them some), you'd think that his debut novel might be, well, a little more exciting! But far from setting it in hot-&-bothered LA or in and amongst the manic metropolis of Tokyo, Read more...

Reviews, Films - Catwoman UK Movie Premiere at Leicester Square, London Tuesday 3rd August By Steve Rudd
	Ok, close your eyes, listen carefully and think hard. Where on earth can you see - and potentially - meet the likes of Halle Berry, Sharon Stone, Benjamin Bratt, Will Smith and David Hasselhoff (no, seriously!) in the space of just two days? I'll give you a clue if you haven't sussed it out already and Read more...

Reviews, Books - Roads by Larry McMurtry By Steve Rudd
	Better known for his novel writing than his travel writing, Texan man McMurtry's most famous works include the epic Western story of Lonesome Dove, and the tear-jerking Terms Of Endearment and The Evening Star. For much of his life he's been a keen collector of books Read more...