Life on the Mississippi

Life on the Mississippi

Featured Artist @trishalyonsart

Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain has been one of the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Book Club selection of the month. Guest author and historian Adam Hochschild calls Life on the Mississippi “one of the greatest non-fiction works ever.” 

Why is Twain’s travelogue so important? Hochschild points out that Life on the Mississippi is one of the few books about work. Twain goes into detail about the actual job of steamboat pilot as the book describes voyages on the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Minnesota. Hochschild adds: “When you are writing about an extraordinary, fascinating profession at the peak of its glory, you don’t have to make things up.”

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