Wintering along the East Coast

Off-Season: Discovering America on Winter’s Shore; Ken McAlpine; Three Rivers Press: 304 pp., $13.95 paper

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I don’t believe frozen mud has ever had its own rhapsodist. But with this volume, Ken McAlpine is auditioning for the job. The performance is worth a look.

McAlpine, who lives in Ventura County, has fashioned this book as an appreciation of this country’s Atlantic shores in winter -- a season that millions of locals quietly cherish.

This exploration, by auto, foot and kayak, may not sound like enough to sustain 304 pages, but it is. The book is wise and wistful, and the author clearly excels at chatting up strangers and honoring them. They are a disparate lot, and that is crucial in keeping this from dwindling into a one-note song. McAlpine is that rare writer who turns slyly lyrical in the company of aging lifeguards, kvetching shrimpers and chilly island villages.

“The waves came to shore like God’s own pageant queens,” he writes from a beach in North Carolina, “sequined and sparkling and perfectly spaced.”

The author starts in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., soon after Labor Day. He makes his way north as fall yields to winter and temperatures drop. By the end, there will be snow and 8-inch icicles. Stops include Valona, Ga. (shrimpers’ territory), Ocracoke Island (in North Carolina), Montauk, N.Y., and ultimately West Quoddy Head, Maine.

Along the way, the author corrects Henry David Thoreau, who wrote that the seashore “is a sort of neutral ground.”

Replies McAlpine: “I would disagree. It is entirely Nature’s place. Man exists there through ignorance and doggedness.”

*

England: Guy Macdonald; Cadogan Guides: 938 pp.,; $22.95 paper

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Cadogan is based in London, so this had better be a well-informed book, right? I’m happy to report it is -- full of good information, historical and logistical, and full of plain- spoken assessments too. Plenty of appealing hotels and restaurants are described, and the maps are good.

But if you’re a first-timer sticking mostly to London, this may not be your teacup. England’s capital gets fewer than 55 pages, less space than is accorded East Anglia or Yorkshire.

*

Highway 61 Revisited: 1,699 Miles From New Orleans to Pigeon River; Tim Steil; MBI Publishing: 160 pp., $29.95

*

If ever a highway were a natural for documentation in a coffee-table book, it’s Highway 61. Running from Canada to New Orleans, mostly within spitting distance of the Mississippi River, the route is a mainstay in American pop culture, from Mark Twain of Missouri to Bob Dylan of Minnesota.

The author, Tim Steil, is well versed in the territory’s musical culture and ready to take the region’s tangled race relations head-on, which is refreshing.

Unfortunately, the book looks like a mess. Jim Luning photography is crowded by handouts from companies and tourist bureaus, snapshots by the author -- every sort of imagery the publishers could collect, it seems.

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