Above the Circle by Marty Basch
Marty Basch is a journalist from New Hampshire who decides to ride the five European countries about the arctic circle (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia) in 1986. The book has a bit to do with cycling, but it’s primarily a series of stories about the people he meets along the way. Along the way, he also files stories with NPR and his local paper and the book reads as if it were a series of newspaper columns.
That’s not to take anything away from the book itself, but it’s far, far less than it could be. The reader is given a taste of the different countries, and the reasons behind his decision to not cycle into Russia was interesting, but it all felt sort of superficial.
Cycling in Iceland has always been a dream of mine, but after reading this, I’m no more persuaded to do it one way or the other. For the real gearheads, there’s almost no information of any kind about what kind of bike he had, what he carried, no logistical information: nothing. I realize this isn’t a “how to” book, but some insight into the mechanics of the trip would have been interesting.
