BURLINGTON, Vt. -- National Book Circle Critics Award-winning author Ted Conover will speak at Champlain College on Friday, March 26 from 3 to 5 p.m. on campus at the Hauke Conference Center, 375 Maple St. The talk is free and open to the public.

Conover will read from his latest book "The Routes of Man: How Roads are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today." The book is a series of stories about Conover's first-person passages down roads around the world.

Conover, on his website, www.tedconover.com, describes his latest book this way: " In The Routes of Man, I link a series of challenging first-person passages down roads with reflections on how this most extensive manmade artifact changes us all, both intentionally and not. It's a book about roads, yes, but like my others it's also a book about me. I continue to admire writing where the writer has something at stake; where he doesn't just depend on experts but rather takes time to think and research and participate, thereby transforming himself into an expert; where his caring and the urgency of the subject can transform the writing into something that matters, an act of witnessing."

Conover's travels for the book take him from the roads over the Andes in Peru to a trucking route in East Africa that has played a role in worldwide spread of AIDS. He also visits the West Bank and highway checkpoints with Israeli soldiers and Palestinians, along with roads in India, China and Nigeria.
Reviewers have called it a "spirited, urgent book that reveals the costs and benefits of being connected-how, from ancient Rome to the present, roads have played a crucial role in human life, advancing civilization even as they set it back."

His earlier books include "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing": "Whiteout: Lost in Aspen"; Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders With America's Illegal Migrants" and Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes."

CALENDAR LISTING
BOOK READING, Author Ted Conover, March 26, 3 to 5 p.m., Hauke Conference Center, 375 Maple St., Champlain College, Burlington, Vt. The National Book Circle Critics Award-winning author will read from his latest book "The Routes of Man: How Roads are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today." The book is a series of stories about Conover's first-person passages down roads around the world. It is free and open to the public.