Spanning two decades, Driving home charts a course through the Pacific Northwest, American history, and current events as witnessed by "a super-sensitive, all-seeing eye." (Newsweek). Frank, witty, and provocative, Driving home is part essay collection, part diary--and irresistibly insightful about America's character, contradictions, and idiosyncrasies.

Originally published: London : Picador, 2010.

Readings -- Driving home -- Mark Twain's "Life on the Mississippi" -- Philip Larkin -- I'm heaven -- Mississippi water -- On the waterfront -- Julia's city -- Why travel? -- The waves -- Walden-on-Sea -- Last call of the wild -- Seagoing -- Homesteading -- Keeping a notebook -- Julia and Hawaii -- The turbulent deep -- White warfare -- The unsettling of Seattle -- The last harpoon -- Battleground of the eye -- The strange last voyage of Donald Crowhurst -- "Gipsy moth" circles the world -- Too close to nature? -- A tragic grandeur -- Surveillance society -- September 11: the price we've paid -- Guantánamo Bay -- A postregional city -- Indian country -- The curse of the sublime -- Good news in bad times -- I'm for Obama -- Going, going, gone -- An Englishman in America -- Second nature -- Cyber city -- An American in England -- Cut, kill, dig, drill -- ELection night 2008 -- The golden trumpet -- Metronaturals -- American pastoral -- At the Tea Party.