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Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed
by Isaac Fitzgerald
New York Times bestselling author Isaac Fitzgerald sets off to the heart of America, following the path of the legendary Johnny Appleseed on an epic journey that both takes him far from home and brings him closer to it.
"It's a difficult thing, to separate legend from story from memory from fact."
As a child, Isaac Fitzgerald was always captivated by Johnny Appleseed, drawn by family ties to the legend, his father's larger-than-life stories, and a shared restlessness to leave home and discover what lies beyond. In American Rambler, he sets out, walking from Massachusetts to Indiana on a year-long journey to follow Appleseed's path, turning a childhood fascination into a profound reckoning of loss and grief, ritual and faith, grimy gas-station bathrooms and scenic apple picking. A moving blend of memoir, history, and travelogue, American Rambler is at once an ode to the American heartland and an antidote to the breakneck pace of modern life.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (6/4/2026)
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What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (5/28/2026)
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"What Fitzgerald learns about himself and the state of the nation is more compelling still, with all their triumphs and tragedies. Blue Highways with hiking boots, and a grand entertainment for travelers real and armchair." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Throughout, Fitzgerald's elegant prose, restless curiosity, and deep compassion leap off the page. The result is a stirring, singular entry in the American road trip genre." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Part history, part travelogue, part meditative yawp, American Rambler is a quest for Johnny Appleseed that becomes a contemporary, warts-and-all portrait of the land he seeded. Isaac Fitzgerald taps into our need to lean on legends—apocryphal or not—in order to understand and justify the way we live now. This book is an absolute joy to read." —Patrick Ryan, author of Buckeye
"Told with loving tenderness and frank realness, American Rambler is a brilliant walking tour given by a sage party monk through the life of the man behind an American myth. A breath of fresh air that isn't always all that fresh, but when it isn't, it's a little bit intoxicating. Fitzgerald's voice is rare for its honesty and generosity, for how much you can feel his love in the writing." —Tommy Orange, author of Wandering Stars
This information about American Rambler was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Isaac Fitzgerald is the New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts (winner of the New England Book Award). He is also the author of the bestselling children's book How to Be a Pirate as well as the co-author of Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them and Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos (winner of an IACP Award). He appears frequently on The Today Show, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, The Guardian, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and numerous other publications. He lives with his wife and their two dogs on the North Fork of Long Island.
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