I wondered if I would find a 600+ page book about a single county in Kansas able to hold my interest. While it took me awhile to get through, reading only a chapter or two each day, the answer was an emphatic yes. The author so completely immerses you in a sense of the place he is exploring, it was impossible to stop reading it. On occasion, I skimmed through some of the "From the Commonplace Books" chapters of citations from other works about Kansas, but I never skipped through the author's own writings. Particularly recommended for fans of the travel genre. ( )

This book was another buddy read with my dad. This has been on my shelves for YEARS, so picking this as a buddy read and reading a chapter a week was the perfect motivator to get through this. This is a deep history/reading/map of Chase County in Kansas. Heat-Moon divides the county with a grid and takes each sector as the focus for a chapter. My dad and I both grew up in Kansas, but neither of us has spent much time in Chase County. Along the way we learned about pack rats, Cottonwood trees, Sam Wood, Knute Rockne, native prairie grasses, and so much more.

Incredibly rewarding. Heat-Moon is a fantastic writer who makes thoughtful and surprising connections, and regularly writes paragraphs that stop me in my tracks. So good. ( )

William Least Heat-Moon explores the idea of the “deep map”, an account of a place that starts with topography, like a conventional map, but then continues into history, botany, anthropology, geography, politics and sociology. The mapped area in this case is Chase County, Kansas, in the Flint Hills; Heat-Moon sets out the USGS quadrangle maps that cover Chase County and walks the rural roads for six years, conversing with the residents and commenting on everything he sees and encounters. It’s really well done, an engaging and easy read but one that rewards contemplation.

Heat-Moon comes across as liberal politically, but understands the local residents; he notes that an attempt to make the Flint Hills a tallgrass prairie national park failed because the park advocates came in as experts from the big city and never connected with the locals. Similarly, Heat-Moon is a conservationist, but he goes coyote hunting with one of the locals without condemnation. There is a section that bothers me a little; Heat-Moon talks to a college professor about the future of agriculture and apparently concurs with the view that “we” have to revert to traction animals and “natural” fertilizer to “save the earth”. I ran into a similar thing in Cræft, in which a armchair farmer advocates that “we” do the same thing; the catch, of course, is that I feel the “we” involved will never include the college professors; they won’t be trudging behind an plow team from dawn to dusk in the middle of a Kansas summer. Maybe that chapter is intended as subtle satire; not sure. I stress, though, this is a very minor quibble over what’s otherwise a highly recommended and rewarding book. ( )

Beware - If you start reading this heavy book you will not be able to stop reading and put it down.

An epic by WLHM. More whimsical but still a Kaplanesque look at a county in eastern Kansas. Walking all the roads and investigating history, economcs and people in the #heartland" of America. Lyrical and insightfl and full of material I was unfamiliar with. A unique book for sure. Almost a 5. ( )