I just finished Neil Peart's (drummer/lyricist of Rush) second book, Ghost Rider this weekend. Four years ago, Neil's 19 year old daughter Selena was killed in a car accident. 10 months later his wife of 22 years, Jackie died of a broken heart (the official diagnosis, according to Neil, was cancer). Feeling depressed, suicidal and without faith or hope for the future, Neil took off on his BMW motorcycle for a 14 month, 55,000 mile Healing Journey. The book chronicles this journey and his subsequent rebirth.

Overall, I thought this was a great read. It was both saddening and inspiring, and extremely (sometimes too much so) descriptive. It was also a surprisingly personal narrative, being that Neil Peart is sort of a hermit, very private and generally shys away from the limelight.

His first book, The Masked Rider, had more of an upbeat tone and was really just a travel journal of his bike tour of Western Africa. I admit that the only reason I read it is because I'm a Rush fan (I don't read many travel books - nor travel much). But I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It hardly mentioned Rush at all and delved very little into Peart's personal life.

Ghost Rider was much different. It is a book that I think I would have found interesting even if I wasn't a Rush fan. I described it to my wife (definitely not a fan) and she has expressed interest in reading it. It was highly personal and many-faceted - not just a travel journal.

Shortly after the death of his wife, Neil felt on the verge of collapse and simply had no choice but to either move or wither away and die. Being an avid motorcyclist, he hopped on his bike and took off with just a vague idea of where he was going and when he was coming back.

The book is a descriptive journey of his travels across Canada, down through the western US and across Mexico. Much of the text is taken straight from his journals or from letters he wrote to various friends and family members along the way. In addition to the physical desription of his journey, Neil describes his spiritual journey, which is the real heart of the book. The only flaw is the redundant and overly descriptive nature of some of the letters transcribed in the book. But beyond that, it's an amazing and inspiring story of survival and dealing with loss.

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