David Lamb (1) (1940–2016)

Wanting to travel across America on a bicycle could strike many as an incomprehensible desire. Over the Hills is a memoir of a middle-aged journalist's 3000-mile afternoon ride. The book is well-written, fun to read, and strikes an excellent balance between travelogue, personal memoir, and barely disguised worship of middle America's relaxed way of life.

The author is decidedly not part of bicycling culture. He wore ordinary-looking clothing on his trip, ate in ordinary diners and truck show more stops, and stayed in ordinary hotel rooms, with his bike standing by the side of the bed. Mr. Lamb is very much a character in his own story.

I'm not sure whether it's that the writing got better after the first few slower chapters, or that I grew to appreciate the style as I read. The latter slow acclimation would be particularly appropriate. Highly recommended to cyclists and considerate cagers alike. show less

Lamb, a reporter during the American War, and again a reporter in Hanoi in the late '90s, gives a complex, nuanced account of Vietnam. Lamb captures the ambiguity of Vietnam as well as his ambivalence--he sees the best and worst in Vietnamese culture. Lamb is well-situated to comment on enduring trends and transient phenomena, and he does so even-handedly and with reasonable self-reflection. Lamb is neither romantic nor cynical about Vietnam, making this book especially refreshing in its show more genre. Read with Thuong Nhu Tang's A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and its Aftermath, and as a well-balanced contrast to Brownmiller's rather negative Seeing Vietnam. show less

Lamb, author of books on Arabs and on Africans, bought a Winnebago RV, named it Forty Niner, and set out one spring from Los Angeles across the country to chronicle his tour of the minor leagues. The minors and its employees are not part of the major league pension system, are generally poorly paid and work in obscurity. If you walk around wearing clothing from a minor-league team, you're a REAL baseball fan. In the book, my copy of which I got in a downtown Philadelphia used bookstore show more called The Book Trader, Lamb first tells of his childhood and family, his love of baseball and of the Milwaukee Braves. As a baseball fan, I found it mildly interesting, but also a bit boring as well because I was eager to get to the story of his road trip. And what a trip: from west to east and back again, the author tells his experiences with the people and places of America and the minor leagues. I loved it. show less

A nice travel/baseball book that seems like a love affair between the author and his favorite franchise(s), the Boston/Milwaukee Braves and the Milwaukee Brewers! Lots of fun reading as the author takes his RV and travels around the U.S. to many of the Brewers minor league team sites and finds several of his former baseball heroes, including Eddie Matthews, Warren Spahn, and Bob Hazel! From the Stockton Ports to the Durham Bulls, Lamb shows us his America and his game, and it feels like we show more are in "Forty-niner" (his RV) with him. A nice read during the summer season for sure! show less