“Letters to Zerky: A Father’s Legacy to a Lost Son . . . and a Road Trip Around the World” ($27, Nickelodeon Press) is that rare travelogue with no ego and a true sense of discovery because when author Bill Raney was writing these missives to his 10-month-old boy, Zerky – the nickname he and his late wife, JoAnne Walker Raney, had for son Eric Xerxes Raney — he had no plans to publish them. They were meant simply to give Zerky narrative snapshots of a trip he would never remember. It is only now, 40 years later, with both Zerky and JoAnne long and tragically deceased, that Bill has decided to share these very personal, often amusing, sometimes painful and mostly fascinating tales of the trio’s escapades across Eurasia in a Volkswagen van during the Vietnam War. Combined with JoAnne’s diary entries from the time, the book is a compelling and poignant read. The glimpses into their lives and the world at the time — including travel into what was then Czechoslovakia, as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and China — are invaluable. Kyle Wagner
