A New Book to Read on the Plane

I always read in bed a while before turning off the light.  Two nights ago, I finished the book I had been reading, and I began another.  I will take this one with me on my trip to Mexico in a couple of days.  It is a 2019 book by the well-known travel writer Paul Theroux.  Years ago, I read one of his early best-sellers, "The Old Patagonian Express" in which he describes his journey, mostly by train, from Boston to Argentina.  A few months ago, I wrote here about another, more recent, book called "Dark Star Safari" in which he writes about his journey across the African continent from Cairo to Cape Town.  When I heard that his latest travel book was about Mexico, of course, I had to get it.  It is called "On the Plain of Snakes".

The author was approaching his eightieth birthday and wanted to travel to a country where an old man is viewed with respect as an "hombre de juicio", a man of wisdom, rather than someone invisible, someone "fading in a pathetic diminuendo while flashing his AARP card."  And so, this author, nearly a decade older than I, did something that I would never dare to do.  In his own car, he drove the entire length of Mexico, from the U.S. border to the frontier with Guatemala.  Everyone advised him not to make the journey.  One tattooed biker in Texas told him, "You gotta be out of your mind, man.  Don't go thar. You'll dah."  Obviously, Theroux lived to tell his tale.  I have only read thirty pages, but it promises to be a fascinating read.