In this fascinating memoir, Woods traces his 60-year odyssey in journalism, a career that included witnessing the bomb-shattered wartime devastation in Britain during which he placed a saucepan on his head to escape bomb damage, and the aftermath of much of the obliteration of German cities in World War II.
Poet Robert Frost described the road not taken as one of good and bad choices that have a lasting bearing on one's future life and career. Woods shares about his choices and historical surroundings, and the literary and other characters he has encountered along the way. He also tells the harrowing story of the illness and death of his 19-year-old son.
Woods writes with a journalist's perceptive ear and eye and always with a crusading sense of protecting good English from such potentially dangerous excrescences as dangling participles and abstract nouns. He not only has a passion for language but also for extracting the maximum in musings from the many interview subjects he has met. The Road Not Taken is a captivating account of Woods' incredible life and career.