Jack London
La Strada

Almost a namesake of the more famous On the Road by Kerouac, this is instead just The Road, a book among the less considered works of another fundamental Jack, London.
In short, the book describes, with sometimes extraordinarily detailed accounts, London's years of wandering around North America at about the age of twenty.
If in Kerouac's book we have a back and forth of cars traveling from one side of the coast to the other, here the automobile was not yet in existence. We are, in fact, towards the end of the 1800s, and if you wanted to travel a few hundred miles, you had to do so by train.
And it is precisely the train that is one of the most mentioned settings in the book, with precise instructions on how to evade controls and take advantage, in a transparent and - obviously - stealthy way, to hitch a ride to who knows where.
Or certain tragicomic scenes where the author himself begs for food in the houses of a city with one eye always on a possible escape; or the extravagant translations of the vagabonds' jargon, the boboes, functional customs and ways of communicating, which make one smile today.
Less amusing are certain descriptions of life in prison, the slums, or certain acts of violence to which the author stands witness, torn but aware of the futility of his intervention.

It is a book that exposes a reality that perhaps not even then was truly intended to be shown, yet if the protagonist of this diary is a London as a beggar, liar, opportunist, petty... in short, a real bastard; at the very least, it inspires envy, when read today, for the extraordinary ability to seize opportunities, to not feel lost in a continent, America, that embodies grandeur. To not fear an uncertain tomorrow. The rhythm of time marked by a "I want to go north" or "I must leave here immediately," and off to the next train.
An engaging naivety that truly touches the heart when compared with today's perspective.
Not an essential read, indeed, but an interesting document, an adventure diary with an almost documentary angle.
Until the next stop.