Status Updates From Excursion Through America

I am absolutely loving this historical account of the opening of the National Pacific railroad. This German writer was invited to travel across the country in 1883 from NYC to Oregon. What an amazing time in our history! The beginning of so many cities and hearing about Yellowstone (which was the first National Park and had only recently been discovered!) was a highlight.

This might be the most boring book I’ve ever read, yet it’s weirdly readable and difficult to put down. Incredibly German in the stereotypical sense that the narrator, while traveling through the US in 1883, is fixated almost exclusively on machinery: farm equipment, trains, street cars, etc. The prose is reflective of this and it’s fairly hypnotic.