Hank Stuever

Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere
By Hank Stuever (Holt, $24)

A journalist recounting his fieldwork in Kerouacian form is nothing new. And it seems even older still after Hunter S. Thompson. But unlike Thompson and his trunk full of psychedelic escapism, Washington Post staff writer Hank Stuever soberly and humbly embraced his bleak early beats, identifying in an almost familial way with what he terms "the American elsewhere."

In this collection of 26 pieces previously published in the Post, Albuquerque Tribune, and Austin American-Statesman, Stuever presents himself as a champion of the underdog, the has-been, the sweet and low-down. He professes empathy and kinship with floundering former child stars, family-owned discount funeral parlors, and the regulars at Kampground of America. He relates the sad fate of Dan DeCarlo, the originator of Josie and the Pussy Cats, who drew inspiration from sketches he made on love letters to his wife. Later, DeCarlo was fired by Archie Comics for claiming rights to the icons.

Given such seemingly lackluster assignments, Stuever adopts a hyper- conscious, soulful stance regarding society's underappreciated nooks. His essays often give surprising depth and richness to the anonymous unknowns. At his best, Stuever provides a bittersweet, unique perspective on the places you've looked at but never seen, and the people you've talked to but who eventually blurred with other forgotten faces.

His last cluster of more recent stories feels out of place, though. The book becomes less about the intriguing, overlooked corners of society and more about Stuever's rising journalistic status. He addresses tragedies like Sept. 11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, which are hardly part of his American elsewhere. And by the end of Off Ramp, Stuever is hardly a humble journalistic nobody, which tips the book off balance. That he describes his precious elsewhere with such insightful eloquence also proves that he's moved beyond it. EMILY PAGE

Hank Stuever will appear at Elliott Bay Book Co., 7:30 p.m. Thurs., July 29.

Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush
By Jim Hightower (Viking, $21.95)

Living in the Lone Star State during the 1980s, I voted for Jim Hightower—twice—as Texas' agriculture commissioner, a more powerful post than it sounds because it oversees the all-important oil industry. I never knew my votes would come to this. After his two terms, Hightower leveraged his politically populist background into a career as a radio talk-show host and left-leaning media populist—a feat so improbable that, by the 1990s, he could rightly claim to have no competition as "America's most popular populist."

But Hightower is still claiming it, as if Michael Moore never happened, and Beating feels just a tad tired. With the Rolling Thunder community fairs, however, there's now a welcome activist component to Hightower's reliable old shtick. Most of the items in his new collection have been culled from his radio commentaries, Web material, newspaper columns, and newsletter (the Hightower Lowdown), which makes for familiar reading.

Inside is a mélange of short, bathroom-reading-length items: mostly populist outrage at the various Bush assaults on society's underdogs, plus humor that would be called down-home—except for the suspicion that nobody's home really sounds like this. A little of it goes a really long way, a natural check on any inclination the reader might have to read all 234 pages in one sitting.

There's a fair amount of good information in Beating, but, frustratingly, you'll never find it again without leaving notes in the margins. Beyond five broad chapters addressing the environment, the economy, food, liberty, and "the common good," there appears to be no real organizing principle or central argument being made. It's meant to be read in three-minute increments, about the length of Hightower's radio commentaries, and it doesn't really matter which increments come first. Remove the introduction and conclusion, and the rest could run in any order.

What separates Hightower's work from the flood of other Bush-bashing titles during this election year? Simple: It's a book meant to be read by people who don't read books. The cover—always a marketing clue—shows Hightower defacing a Bush poster. Populist-pandering, or puerile? You decide. GEOV PARRISH

Jim Hightower will appear at the Seattle Rolling Thunder Festival in Magnuson Park (7400 Sand Point Way N.E., 206-984-4946, www.seattlethunder.net, $10), 8 p.m. Sat., July 31; and at Elliott Bay Book Co., 2 p.m. Sun., Aug. 1.

The Curse of the Singles Table: A True Story of 1,001 Nights Without Sex
By Suzanne Schlosberg (Warner, $13.95)

Once Sex and the City became a phen­omenon, publishers began hurling this sort of frank, clever sex-advice lit at every single-looking women in sight. Hopping on the trend with her memoir, Suzanne Schlosberg makes it clear that she's getting far less action than Carrie Bradshaw. A Jewish freelance writer from L.A., she takes the inadvertent path of celibacy after various unfulfilling relationships (the most recent with an emotionally blank cop).

Schlosberg traces her journey from "B.C.E. (Before the Celibacy Era)" to the final Age of Enlightenment. None of her adventures is that surprising, but she meets some crazy, colorful characters along the way. The variety of inane dating tactics she employs to meet the perfect man will make many women laugh and shudder with recognition. Naturally, she tries online dating and complains about the reality behind those photos. She gives speed dating a whirl at her neighborhood Starbucks, meeting and mingling with 14 singles in eight-minute bursts (yes, it's as depressing as it sounds). She also plays up her demanding, eccentric family and amplifies her own supposedly irresistible, neurotic personality. There's even a bit of travelogue, as she takes escape trips to places as remote as Provideniya, Russia.