Recently I was on a hike and one of the topic of conversations was travel literature. We talked about some of our favorite books, what we were reading now, and what inspired us. My hiking buddy, Kory Kilmer, mentioned the one that really caught him was John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley. It was right at about this time that the realization struck me that I hadn't turned a page in a Steinbeck book since high school.

Back when I was in school I hated to read. Well, not so much a hate to r...