Jeb Brugmann is author of Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities Are Changing the World. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Roads bring medicine and disease, development and destruction, commerce and war. Curious about the impact of new roads on isolated places, immersion journalist Conover, a National Book Critics Circle Award winner, rides in unreliable, body-battering trucks on harrowing roads in Peru to witness the illegal logging of mahogany trees, then, with all due irony, stays at a hotel for eco-tourists. In the spellbound Himalayan valley of Zanskar, he joins villagers walking down the only winter road: the frozen river. What will happen if India builds an all-season road? Is there a connection between truckers and the spread of AIDS in Africa? It seems so as Conover rides with a Kenyan truck driver who observes, The road is very unfair, very harsh. Road-to-hell stories of Iraq and Afghanistan are matched by chilling experiences at the checkpoints that block roads and destroy lives in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Convivial, intrepid, and happiest in motion, Conover tempers concerns about the paradoxes of roads with appreciation for the ingenuity and fortitude of the road warriors who welcome him into their arduous lives.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

Journalist Conover's (www.tedconover.com) fifth book follows the National Book Critics Circle Award winner Newjack (2000), also available from Brilliance Audio. In it, he documents his travels along six of the world's major byways and shares his resulting observations about the role of roads in civilization throughout the centuries, addressing both their positive (e.g., economic) and negative (e.g., environmental) impacts and allowing readers/listeners to reach their own conclusions. The rich narration by three-time Audie Award winner Dick Hill (www.dickhill.com) brings the vivid details of Conover's adventures to life. A well-written and perceptive work recommended for all libraries. [For LJ editor Margaret Heil-brun's take on this title's Knopf hc, see LJ 1/10.-Ed.]-Denise A. Garofalo, Mount Saint Mary Coll. Lib., Newburgh, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.