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Review ------ “The season’s most playful (and best titled) entry . . . [Ratay] vividly captures that relatively brief – but iconic – time before cheap air travel and Wi-Fi, when ‘six people locked up together in a tiny padded room,’ hurtling down the highway without seatbelts, was something not simply to be enjoyed but survived. Under Ratay’s confident and relaxed spell, anyone of a certain age will be instantly transported back to those more innocent times when Fuzzbusters and eight-track players were the order of the day . . . Deceptively informative, this high-spirited romp down the byways of America is part social history, part memoir, and a loving salute to that brief time when the wood-paneled family station wagon was king of the open road.” —Andrew McCarthy, New York Times Book Review “Don’t Make Me Pull Over! is nostalgia-glazed…charming…[and] poignant.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air “With s and rear-seat entertainment systems, the family road-trip experience has changed dramatically, writes Ratay in this enjoyable reminiscence on what they used to be . . . [His] informative, often hilarious family narrative perfectly captures the love-hate relationship many have with road trips.” —Publishers Weekly “Richard Ratay’s long-distance childhood adventures in his family’s giant land cruisers are at the center of Don’t Make Me Pull Over!, a breezy and warm-hearted ‘informal history’ of the great American family road trip…It all goes down like a cold lemonade on a hot summer’s day. Mr. Ratay is a charming raconteur who always seems to know just when it’s time to get us all back into the car with his big, quintessentially middle-class family.” —Wall Street Journal “As someone who missed the golden age of the family road trip, I found Don’t Make Me Pull Over! a wonderful revelation, filled with unexpected—and frequently amusing—ins into how so much of our culture was built.” —Rob Erwin, author of Lost with Directions: Ambling Around America “If only this book were available to Clark Griswold, he and his family might well have stayed home. Don’t Make Me Pull Over! is an encyclopedia of road trip adventures.” —Chevy Chase, star of National Lampoon’s Vacation and “Saturday Night Live” "A book with a title as good as Don’t Make Me Pull Over! has a lot to live up to, and somehow Richard Ratay manages to deliver. It’s a memoir, a work of popular history, and a love letter all in one. Books this wise are seldom so funny; books this funny are rarely so wise." —Andrew Ferguson, author of Land of Lincoln and Crazy U “Captures all the adventure, bonding, desperate conflict, and existential self-interrogation that is only made possible by hours (and hours) on the road with your family. Read it, but probably don’t read it while also driving your family around.” —John Hodgman, author of More Information than You Require and Vacationland "Ratay's impressively researched book isn't just a road trip across America—it's a trip back in time. Suddenly I was eight years old again and bouncing around seatbelt-free in the back of a Ford Country Squire station wagon." —Ken Jennings, record-breaking "Jeopardy!" champion, and author of head “Ratay has perfectly captured the essence of what it was like to embark on a road trip in the golden days of family vacations. Combining spot-on history and a great sense of humor Don't Make Me Pull Over! feels so authentic I got car reading it.” —Jane Stern, co-author of Roadfood Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) About the Author ---------------- Richard Ratay was the last of four kids raised by two mostly attentive parents in Elm Grove, Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in journalism and has worked as an award-winning advertising copywriter for twenty-five years. Ratay lives in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, with his wife, Terri, their two sons, and two very excitable rescue dogs. Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) See all Editorial Reviews ( /dp/product-description/1501188755/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&isInIframe=0 )