One thought for this week - doing this issue today means I've now been doing this for over two months with only one week missed out. Pretty good record, even if I do say so myself. We'll save the celebratory anniversary parties for a while though - at least until next week, when I hit double figures.

Not too much else to put in this section this week but I did read an interesting review of Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, comparing it with George Soros' book on globalization. Palast's book is of course featured in the Bartcop Books Library, along with many other works. Unfortunately, although it was in The Observer, I can't find a link to the review on the Guardian Unlimited website to send you to. If anyone does find the link, please let me know!

So, with the introduction out of the way, what's this week's book?

Old Glory by Jonathan Raban

I'm not a big believer in serendipity, fate, destiny or any of that but some of the events behind Old Glory becoming this week's book are a bit strange. I've been reading a lot of travel books recently in preparation for a big trip to the USA later this year (more on that in a later issue, no doubt) and this was one of the books I picked up in the local library just for research purposes, not really thinking it would be anything special but might have some interesting parts in it I could use somewhere. Instead, I got hooked from almost the first page.

Raban's basic idea is simple - to travel down the Mississippi from Minneapolis to New Orleans by boat. In itself, the idea could be just another 'mildly eccentric Englishman travels around America' travelogue but two things raise it above the ordinary. First, there's Raban's undoubted talent as a writer, capturing the spirit of the river as he travels down it and giving you an insight into what it is like to travel down the river in a sixteen-foot boat. In Raban's hands, the Mississippi becomes more than a river, it's a primeval spirit cutting through the heart of America capable of carrying you as far as you want to go but always ready to charge a price for your journey. The people he encounters on his way down are also skillfully depicted and you understand that he's writing about real people not the two-dimensional caricatures that inhabit so much travel writing.

Secondly, he has a deep interest in the river itself that could even be seen as an obsession. From his days as a child in England, encountering the long blue line of the river in an atlas, the Mississippi is more to him than just another river but a way to find the truth of America, the one that lives literally off the beaten track. He understands that the Mississippi has a mythical role in America from the stories of Twain and others through to the enduring image of riverboats travelling along it.

At times when you're reading it it's easy to forget that Old Glory was written in 1979, especially in the early sections, which is probably an evocation of Raban's talent in making his view of the Mississippi seem like it's something eternal, depicting various of the towns on his way as if they've been living in the same way for years and will continue to do so until the river rises up and washes them away. Despite this, Raban's present day does rise up to dominate the central part of the book when he finds himself retracing President Carter's campaigning journey on the Dixie Queen steamboat, almost watching the 'Reagan Democrats' being born in front of his eyes. Then, as he travels further down, the Iranian hostage crisis becomes the topic of everyone's conversations and it helps him see the America of the 70s move into the 80s.

It's one of those books I only discovered by chance, but it could well be one that everyone else has read and I'm just following on behind everyone else in recommending it. Even if that is true, there's one little detail that I think makes it of especial interest to Bartcop readers and is one of those weird bit of synchronicity that I referred to at the start.

Stuck in the town of Cape Girardeau, Missouri Raban goes in search of the town's past, wanting to know some of its history. The local newspaper refer him to the town's oldest practising attorney, an 88 year-old called ... Rush Limbaugh.

Now, bear in mind that this was written a long time before Rush ever rose to national prominence in the US, I'm left wondering which of three explanations there are for this. As far as I can see there's one of three options:

1) It's just a coincidence - 'Rush Limbaugh' might not be a common name, but there could well be some other unfortunate soul with the same name.
2) It's one of The Lying Pigboy's elderly relations who gave the young Rush his name.
3) A younger Rush, looking for a name to use on the radio chanced upon a copy of Old Glory and borrowed the name. After all, he did use another name on radio once, right?

I have no answers, but if anyone out there does, please let me know.

OK, with that little Rush-shaped mystery to chew on, I'll leave you for another week...

Nick