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Published in the U.S. as Hokkaido Highway Blues and elsewhere under Hitching Rides with Buddha, Will Ferguson’s story of hitchiking across Japan is epic and sure to become a classic. Although the book doesn’t say when the trip was executed, the publication date is 1998, and we surmise that Furguson probably made the trip one or two years before.
Book Description:
Take a humorist from the Great White North — one part Bob and Doug McKenzie, the other Bill Bryson — feed him lots of sake, and set him loose hitchhiking his way through polite Japanese society. The result is one of the warmest and funniest travelogues you’ve read. It had never been done before. Not in four thousand years of Japanese recorded history had anyone followed the Cherry Blossom Front from one end of the country to the other. Nor had anyone hitchhiked the length of Japan. And, as Ferguson learns, it illustrates that to travel is better than to arrive.
“I enjoyed Hitching Rides with Buddha immensely. Will Ferguson is a very gifted writer.”
–Bill Bryson
“The road book of the year. . . A warm-hearted account with a generous helping of satire.”
–“The Daily Telegraph
“A mild stroke of genius. . . Savagely hilarious.”
–“Sunday Herald
“You trust both his humour and his insights. . . . An admirable pair of eyes through which to see contemporary Japan.”
–“The Observer
About the Author:
Will Ferguson is an award-winning travel writer and novelist. His last work of fiction, 419, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He has won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour a record-tying three times and has been nominated for both the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. His new novel, The Shoe on the Roof, will be released October 17, 2017
Books on Asia’s Take:
One of the funniest books on Japan we’ve ever read. And it’s all true. Up there with Dave Barry Does Japan.