3

T H U R S D A Y

From the Venus Flytrap Capital of the World (Holly Ridge, N.C., on U.S. 17) to the Loneliest Phone on the Loneliest Road in America (Sand Mountain, Nev., on U.S. 50), Road Trip USA: Cross Country Adventures on America’s Two-Lane Highways pays homage to the nation’s back roads and byways that have somehow survived into the Age of the Interstates. As a guide book, it’s a glove-compartment treasure: exquisitely written, wry, but never smug—an updated WPA Writers Project guide with a lot of attitude. It’s particularly fine on places to eat and pop-culture shrines. One minor quibble: In the chapter on the D.C.-area stretch of U.S. 64, there’s no mention of the Statler Brothers’ Museum in Staunton, Va., a cultural landmark in a converted elementary school. Otherwise, author Jamie Jensen and his team of writers have provided the essential driver’s manual for the hungry and the restless. Jensen talks about his travel tome at 7 p.m. at Travel Books, 4931 Cordell Ave., Bethesda. FREE. (301) 951-8533. (Eddie Dean)