As Far as You Can Go Without a Passport: The View from the End of the Road

Tom Bodett's glimpses of life in Alaska are completely entertaining. Great people and stories, along with lots of laughs.

The best comedy writers often use their own experiences to generate their material. If their subject matter is a particular lifestyle or area of the country, then they must have lived it and generally stay within it. Bodett lives in Homer, Alaska, and a place that I quite frankly had to look up on a map. His real life is that of a building contractor, and his deadpan delivery made him very popular on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." In this book, Bodett puts forward a series of short "observations" about life in small town Alaska. He talks about hunting, fishing, having and raising a child, a reclusive trapper with his sled dogs and other natural things found in that area of Alaska. He also talks about other annoyances that all other adults can relate too. Socks getting lost in the laundry, cooking a meal that smells like a pile of long neglected laundry, the perils of Christmas shopping and the universal junk drawer containing a "required" set of worthless materials. Bodett puts it all down in a matter-of-fact style as if these situations are a natural part of the human condition. His attitude is that since we can't do anything about it anyway, we might as well take it in stride. For some people, comments and comedy are one and the same and Bodett fits well into that group.

Thanks Tom for making me snort laugh through my nose. I'll be searching out your other work now.

A passport is a really necessary item -- most of the time -- but as this book shows, you don't need one all the time. And, for certain places, a passport is not needed at all. But, how far can you go without one? This book gives you details on that and more. It will make your passport even more valuable, and, significantly, it will give you the lowdown on where you should go -- passport or not. Highly recommended.