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CAulds
May 18, 2013CAulds rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Education of a Wandering Man is auto-biographical, but not really an auto-biography. It's the story of how L'Amour educated himself, through books, and doesn't touch on many other aspects of his life. In Education, Louis does mention that he intends to follow that book with a full auto-biography. Unfortunately, he never got the chance. He died in 1988, the year before Education was published. Due to family financial hardship, L'Amour dropped out of school when he was fifteen, which would've been about 1923, and spent the next eight years traveling around the American West working odd jobs on cattle ranches, farms, lumber mills, and even mines. To earn extra money L'Amour boxed in small prizefights around the country and earned a reputation as a formidable contender. Then, while in his twenties, L'Amour became a merchant marine and traveled the globe via steamship. During all this time, L'Amour was reading books, books he found in mining camps, in the crew's quarters of sailing vessels, in public libraries, in the backpacks of other travelers. In Asia, he employed locals to do "sight-translations" for him, reading books in their original language, and translating them aloud on-the-fly; Louis invited others to attend these book readings and to discuss what they heard, or if they knew something first-hand about the topic, to share it. As soon as he set foot in a new town, L'Amour would locate the local library. He'd spend entire days, until late at night, at the library. If libraries weren't around, he'd skip meals so he'd have enough money to order books from catalogs. He kept lists of those books he read, and those he hoped one day to be able to find, buy and read. He was also working on his craft as a budding writer, scribbling notes in cheap notepads that he kept with him all the time. All of his experiences while traveling, all the books he read, and all the notes he wrote laid the groundwork for his later successful career. But even after L'Amour became a successful established writer, his pursuit of learning continued and rewarded him greatly. He is a perfect example of the self-taught man and lifelong learner. That's what he writes about in Education of a Wandering Man; not himself; but the lifestyle he chose, one he found very rewarding. It's an easy read, very enjoyable, but most of all, it's inspiring. It's available from your local library. Read it.