Louis L’Amour novels are in my family’s blood. My grandfather has been collecting L’Amour’s Westerns for as long as I can remember, stacking the shelves of his Stormy Lake cabin with them. He’s read each one of them several times over, and he passed his love for them onto at least one of his grandkids.

My brother, not me.

It’s not that I actively dislike Westerns, it’s just that I don’t really like them…and yeah, there’s a difference. I enjoyed reading the graphic novel depiction of L’Amour’s Law of the Desert Born, and I’ve been slowly making my way through a short-story collection if his called Monument Rock, but I’ve yet to complete a full-length Western, but that failure is on me. Truth be told, L’Amour’s modern-day Siberian fugitive adventure, The Last of the Breed, is one of my all-time favorite novels, so it’s just the Western genre that doesn’t appeal to me, not the author.

And that conjecture is further proved by this memoir, an amazing piece of writing by the man himself as he looks back half-a-century to the very beginning stages of his wanderings, his love for reading, and his dabbling in the art of storytelling. This piece of autobiography is a must-read for someone trying to find his place in the world. I first heard about it from Brett McKay of theartofmanliness.com as recommended reading for the biography badge in his The Strenuous Life program. I’m about two years too late to make this read applicable for that badge, but no worries. I’ve been living strenuously enough on my own.

This book reminds me a lot of Jack London’s The Road (1907), his own memoirs of living as a hobo aboard the trains that crisscrossed America at the turn of the century. The feel is the same, a young bachelor scraping a living together with odd jobs and a wanderlust that can’t be quenched by any locale this great nation has to offer. Along the way, both men read voraciously, and both come away with stories and memories that form plots for later works. Sometimes I wish I had the foresight during my own wandering bachelor years to be like these me, reading anything I could get my hands on and taking copious notes of life and the living. Alas, all I came away with were journals about girls I’d never marry and a whole lot of TV watched. Not nearly the same as a London or a L’Amour.

This book is absolutely chuck-full of wisdom from a man who learned the hard and unorthodox way. I could essentially copy-paste the entire thing for you to read, but instead of taking the plagiarism route, I’m choosing to just record the greatest nuggets of all. This book is well worth your time, a diamond in the rough. If you can get your hands on a copy, get it and hold on to it dearly.

On Writing:

“A great book begins with an idea; a great life, with a determination.” (13)

If a person does not have ideas, he had better not even think of becoming a writer. But ideas are everywhere. There are ideas enough in any daily newspaper to keep a man writing for years. Ideas are all about us, in the people we meet, the way we live, the way we travel, and how we think about things. It’s important to remember that we are writing about people. Ideas are important only as they affect people. And we are writing about emotion. A few people reason, but all people feel. (124)

Of course, one can write whatever one wishes, but unless it conforms to the tastes of the public at the time, it will stay right on the author’s shelf. (126)

“When I hear people talking of writer’s block, I am amazed. Start writing, no matter about what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. You can sit and look at a page for a long time and nothing will happen. Start writing and it will.” (147)

On Learning:

“No university exists that can provide an education; what a university can provide is an outline, to give the learner a direction and guidance. The rest one has to do for oneself.” (14)

“No one can ‘get’ an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process.” (15)

I think the greatest gift anyone can give to another is the desire to know, to understand. Life is not for simply watching spectator sports, or for taking part in them; it is not for simply living from one working day to the next. Life is for delving, discovering, learning. (114)

“Politics is the art of making civilization work.” (233)

On Reading:

“It is often said that one has but one life to live, but that is nonsense. For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.” (34)

The armchair adventurer has all the advantages, believe me. As I have said elsewhere, and more than once, I believe adventure is nothing but a romantic name for trouble. (115)

“A book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.” (146)

©2022 E.T.

Read More from Louis L’Amour:

• Dead Man’s Trail (1947)
• Kilrone (1966)
• Last of the Breed (1986)
• The Education of a Wandering Man (1989)
• Law of the Desert Born: A Graphic Novel (2013)

Check Out These Other American Travelogues:

• Down the Great River by Captain Willard G. Glazier (1887)
• The Road by Jack London (1907)
• America and Americans by John Steinbeck (1966)
• A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins (1979)
• The Walk West by Peter Jenkins (1981)
• The Road Unseen by Peter and Barbara Jenkins (1985)
• The Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour (1989)
• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (1998)