On the Road

What Books Drove You to Do Something?

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A few weeks ago we noticed a story in the news about an 11-year-old boy here in Austin who was inspired to leave home after reading My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George.  The boy filled a backpack with oranges and left his house in search of independence and adventure.  My Side of the Mountain, published in 1959, is set in upstate New York, where a young boy goes out into the Catskills and survives the wilderness on his own.  This got us thinking, what books have we read that inspired us to do or change something?  Here are a few of those books.

“I first read On the Road by Jack Kerouac when I was 16 and reread it every year for the next five years. That book spoke to the wanderer in me, as cheesy as that sounds now. I read all of the writings of Kerouac’s Beat colleagues and wrote letters to many of them while I was in high school. To this day, one of my most prized possessions is a handwritten postcard response from Allen Ginsberg.  I had grand plans for a cross-country road trip, and while I got around to buying the VW Bus to make the trip in my college years, I never found the time or finances to set off. I think I’m manifesting the road trip cravings with frequent house moves. I still dream of buying another VW Bus and making the trip . . . maybe once my kids’ college is paid for!”

—Tanya, Business Development Manager

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“When I was a little girl I was totally obsessed with The Babysitter’s Club series by Ann M. Martin.  Every gift I got for several years running was the next few books in the collection.  I had an entire bookshelf dedicated to them in my bedroom.  I got together with the girlfriends I had on my street and we formed our own neighborhood babysitters club, complete with flyers that we peddled around to mailboxes on every block and weekly club meetings and yes, even a babysitting job or two!  It didn’t last very long; little girls have short attention spans, after all.  I did end up being the go-to girl in the neighborhood for sitting services into my teens, though, so I guess the resume building babysitter’s club start-up paid off in the end.”

—Kristen, Distribution Manager

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“Just after college, I picked up Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984 in a bookstore. I’d always felt a secret frisson of excitement when I mentioned a band no one else had ever heard of, but this book helped me grow out of immature name-dropping into a more comprehensive knowledge of an amazing period in popular music—and made me buy way more music than I could afford at the time. Reading about the charismatic, flamboyant, creative, and sometimes mentally unstable figures of post-punk, synth pop, and New Romanticism also prompted an ill-fated electronic keyboard purchase, but even after I sold that a couple of years later, the spirit and insight of this book stuck with me.”

—Aaron, Distribution Associate