The Bicycle Diaries

By David Byrne
That's the David Byrne who sang in Talking Heads and now gets slightly peeved by people who think he's not done anything since the split up. He relears a new album every couple of years, and tours, as well as producing strange art shows like that musical building thing in London a couple of years ago.
I caught the last tour. Very good actually. Supporting an album I didn't much care for, but the concert and the resulting film where both top notch.
Still. As well as being a musician, David Byrne is a cyclist. Not the kind of cyclist who wears spandex and lycra, jumps red lights and yells at mere mortals who dare to walk on the pavement while the cycling god wishes to pass. Very mellow, very laid back. He is in the habit of taking a folding bike on tour, bolting it back together in his hotel room and then pootling about whatever city he's visiting, getting the feel for the place, while visiting lots of modern art galleries.
This is frankly a huge relief. While I'm fully aware that art doesn't change if you discover something unpleasant about the artist, it would be a shame to have to re-interpret their work on discovering that they're a git. Still, if Byrne is a git, he's not that kind of git.
Byrne pootles about, looking at cities, stopping and talking to people, thinking about what makes various cultures tick and at least some of the time, how much better life would be if we all listened to funky salsa music and rode bikes. It does help that this is a philosophy I have a lot of time for.
I am not quite sure if the book is a collection of blog postings. There are certainly points when it reads like one, and after a while I was rather feeling that reading the book as a book was a mistake. Each little snippet is nice and often insightful, but perhaps they would have been better read one a day over several months.
Towards the end of the book a more thorough narrative develops, with Byrne reporting on a conference he organised to discuss promoting cycling in New York City. Not really a place I'd automatically want to go for a ride, but he makes it sound inviting.
Byrne's cycling is for the most part very urban, while mine is all about getting out of towns and being able to enjoy nature. But there's a lot in the book that works.