Stranger on a Train

By Jenny Diski

Book Overview

Using two cross-country trips on Amtrak as her narrative vehicles, British writer Jenny Diski connects the humming rails, taking her into the heart of America with the track-like scars leading back to her own past. As in the highly acclaimed Skating to Antarctica, Diski has created a seamless and seemingly effortless amalgam of reflections and revelation in a unique combination of travelogue and memoir.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312422628
• ISBN13: 9780312422622
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Solitude up in smoke

A militant solitaire with a quirky passion for traveling in circles (literally) being "entertained" by strangers as if they were coin-operated. Some great quotes in this book about Alone Time. Ended without an end, however...like a train just seemed to run out of steam.

Excellent book

This is a wonderful author. Her books are entertaining, valuable and insightful. Highly recommended. This book in particular gives one the pleasure of a train trip without suffering through Amtrak delays. A must-read to train travel fanciers.

Well worth the read

I enjoyed Diski's self revelations and conversations with Americans on her cross country train trips. Yes, she clearly needs her cigarettes, and yes, she discusses what are clearly uncomfortable settings of her own mental health, but people, her writing is fantastic, and she creates a definite view of what train travel in the US is like these days. The reviewer that wonders what happened in certain legs of the journey needs to realize that yes, one does sleep on the train and certain geography is doomed to be missed in such a trip. THis book is less about the external geography and more about the internal geography the authors sees with her traveling compatriots across America. A wonderful look at Americans and at an author examining herself while traveling.

great trip

Jenny Diski clearly had a great trip and this book proves how even a 'non-traveler' can easily fall beneath the spell of long-distance train travel. Anyone planning to follow her example and journey around North America by train should also get hold of the excellent USA by Rail guidebook by John Pitt.