Hopping Freight Trains in America by Duffy Littlejohn is a howto manual for riding trains – a hobo training manual. It’s an enlightening look into trains and hobo culture. At times, the author can delve too deeply into railroad history for my tastes, or become so technical I feel like I’m reading an operation manual for the railroad, but the amount of useful (and generally unknown) information contained in these pages is immense. I highly recommend it to anyone with the slightest interest in trains, hobos, or alternative transportation.

With things going the way they are, hopping trains may soon become a much more viable option for long distance travel. Here’s your introduction.

Today I finished reading Boston T. Party’s Bulletproof Privacy. The book attempts to teach one how to live off the radar, but within Civilization. It covers topics such as building identities, anonymous addresses, bugging out, and the like. Published in 1997, much of the information is dated (I skipped the part on airplane travel). Other parts are common sense, but the book does provide a few gems of information. I’d recommend giving it a skim if you’re considering becoming invisible (or would just like the ability to do so).

Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture is an alternative American history. It is a collection of essays, poems, and art, documenting America’s lost drop-outs, rebels, and other undesirables. The majority deal with the revolutionary period.

The book has its ups and downs. Some pieces are crafted in such a way that I only skimmed through them, others enthralled me. I recommend it for fans of Hakim Bey.