Monster of a Land On the Road in Search of Modern America by Lauren Hough

Some books feel like a long drive with the windows down. This is one of them.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing comes a road trip for our times—a sharp, salty update of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, told with Lauren Hough’s signature wit and unflinching honesty.

Hough always dreamed of the road trips she could never afford. No money. No vacation days. No car that could make the journey. So when writing finally gave her the flexibility (if not always the paycheck) to go, she fixed up a ramshackle 2001 Dodge van, loaded up her Husky mix Woody, and set off from Austin, Texas.

What follows is part travelogue, part social commentary, and 100% Lauren Hough.

With Woody as the ultimate wingman and conversation starter, Hough chats her way across the country—at gas stations, diners, auto shops, and dive bars—meeting an extraordinary cross-section of Americans from every walk of life and every corner of the political map. As a six-foot-tall lesbian and Air Force vet who knows what it means to live on the margins, she listens with rare empathy and writes with razor-sharp insight.

The result is a journey that shows us how far we’ve come as a country—and how far we still have to go.

Funny. Poignant. Honest. The kind of book you’ll want to talk about long after the last page.

Stop by the shop and let us hand you a copy. We think you’ll want to settle in and linger with this one.

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