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PRAISE FOR LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI: An invigorating blend of history and journalism informs this journey down Old Man River. . . . Besides being a willing and intrepid traveler, Buck is also an able interpreter of history, and it's clear that he's devoured a library of Mississippiana. It all makes for an entertaining journey in the manner of William Least Heat-Moon, John McPhee, and other traveler-explainers. For armchair-travel aficionados and frontier-history buffs, it doesn't get much better. --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) PRAISE FOR THE OREGON TRAIL: An incredible true story . . . Weaving a tale somewhere between a travelogue and a history lesson, Buck traces the iconic path literally and figuratively as he re-creates the great migration with his brother and a Jack Russell terrier. --Entertainment Weekly Excellent . . . An amazing cross-country journey . . . Rinker and Nick Buck's conquest of the trail, the achievement of a lifetime, makes for a real nonfiction thriller, an account that keeps you turning the pages because you can't conceive how the protagonists will make it through the enormous real-life obstacles confronting them. --Ian Frazier, The New York Review of Books Enchanting . . . Interspersed with the story of his westward journey, Mr. Buck entertains and enlightens with discourses on American history and culture. . . . He has delivered us a book filled with so much love--for mules, for his brother, for America itself. . . . Long before Oregon, Rinker Buck has convinced us that the best way to see America is from the seat of a covered wagon. --Gregory Crouch, The Wall Street Journal Absorbing . . . The many layers in The Oregon Trail are linked by Mr. Buck's voice, which is alert and unpretentious in a manner that put me in mind of Bill Bryson's comic tone in A Walk in the Woods. . . . He's good company on the page, and you root for him. . . . He's particularly winning on how, as he puts it, 'the vaudeville of American life was acted out on the trail.' . . . This shaggy pilgrimage describes a form of happiness sought, and happiness found. --Dwight Garner, The New York Times Awe-inspiring . . . Charming, big-hearted, impassioned, and a lot of fun to read . . . If Buck doesn't quite make you want to hitch up your own wagon, his rapturous account will still leave you daydreaming and hungry to see this land. --The Boston Globe A remarkable saga . . . Thanks to Buck's utterly engaging voice, infectious enthusiasm, unquenchable curiosity, dogged determination and especially his ability to convey the interaction of two brothers (and three mules), all of whom pull together despite their strong but profoundly different personalities, the saga becomes nothing short of irresistible. . . . This tale of brotherhood, persistence and daring so snares the emotions that it becomes a tear-jerker at its close. --Rosemary Herbert, Minneapolis Star Tribune A laugh-out-loud masterpiece . . . Alternately harrowing and exhilarating . . . The book is an unremitting delight. --Willamette Week

Author Information

Rinker Buck began his career in journalism at the Berkshire Eagle and was a longtime staff writer for the Hartford Courant. He has written for Vanity Fair, New York, Life, and many other publications, and his work has won the PEN New England Award, the Eugene S. Pulliam National Journalism Writing Award, and the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award. He is the New York Times bestselling author of The Oregon Trail, Flight of Passage, and First Job. He lives in Tennessee.

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