Errant writer Amy Halloran took a trip from Seattle to Maine for four weeks in August, 1997. As Halloran hit the road, Hot Ink asked her to take America's literary pulse. "Ask people what they're reading," we said. Thus, from August 8 through September 1, Halloran's road journal became a continuing report on literary culture and roadside attractions.

Hot Ink's roving reader discovered that literature is alive and well in America. The readers Amy Halloran encountered covered a broad range -- from Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Charles Frazier to Anne Tyler and Mary McGarry Morris. Amy Halloran also encountered readers everywhere: dishwashers and waitresses who recited poetry, beach-blanket bimbos with naked men and somnolent subway ri ders who read blank books, and never missed their stops. Along the way, Halloran also did a little self-discovery of her own.