On my list of "desert island" books I usually offer HARD LAUGHTER by Anne Lamott and a little gem of a book by Peter S. Beagle. No, not that one. Yeah, he's the guy who wrote A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE, book that I've tried to read countless times. A book adored by almost everyone I know whose taste works for me. I just never quite clicked with it.

But I SEE BY MY OUTFIT is a book I've read, oh I don't know, I've lost count. Twenty times? More or less? I have no memory of when I encountered it. I have, I think, two copies and I can't find one which really bugs me because I think that one is signed but this one, with the red cover and the yellowed pages, is the reading copy that stays over there, with the special books. It's a used Ballantine paperback, cost 75 cents when new in 1966.

I SEE BY MY OUTFIT is Beagle's tale of a cross-country journey he took with his friend Phil Sigunik. Two Bronx boys on Heinkel scooters heading to California. Some friends sprinkled across the map, a few friends of friends and parents of friends who would be counted on for showers/laundry, a hot meal, conversation. They had the tent, the sleeping bags, not much else.

In those days, kids (knock cane on floor. Hey, I have a cane, I can do this bit!) there were no cell phones. There was no GPS, Mapquest, or internet. There were no home computers or phone cards. There was long distance and AAA. Nothing was instant. Nothing was fast.

Beagle and Sigunik were friends from before time – early childhood. They share a love of music, strange alien motor scooters (not motorcycles, they make clear) and each other. They are the best of friends – this helps when you are traveling three thousand miles seldom out of sight of each other. Trust me, I've made that trip by car twice. Once east to west, and then years later, back the other way. Peter was on his way to Menlo Park, California where Enid awaited. Phil was along for the adventure and maybe to draw.

There is such an effortless charm to Beagle's writing here, such an ability to write funny, to write with giggles and joy that it's not fair. It can't be taught and I don't know anyone else who can match the voice of this story. There are countless references to literature – but so what if you don't recognize them. It's okay. I've laughed at other books for other reasons; there's Terry Pratchett's wonderful sense of absurdity. There's Christopher Moore's goofiness, especially FLUKE and LAMB. I adore wit, humor that touches your intelligence as well as just plain silliness. I hate obsession as humor, whininess and embarrassment as a purpose for humor. I leave the room when "Seinfeld" is on – it was voted the funniest television show ever, In fact when most comedies are on television, and most comic movie trailers make me cringe. Stuff just isn't funny to me often. I don't get it and I hate that. This? This I get. Page after funny, witty, gentle goofy page.

When I first read Jasper Fforde, and talked about him with Sally Powers, my editor at I Love a Mystery, she asked me to review the book. I protested saying "but Sally, all I want to do is say 'and on page 17 there's this pun' and on page 35, there's this hilarious conversation about forgery' and then on page 72, there's the cutest line'. That's not a review."

And bless her, Sally said "write that. Go ahead. Do it that way." It was weird and it was not a true review and it was one of the hardest reviews to write ever. But it worked because it did get across the feeling of the book and what was so great about it.

How to describe ISBMO without doing that is difficult. I ran out of bookmarks once I started noting the pages I wanted to cite. Peter Beagle writes so, so, sweetly, and finds the light, the humor, the absurdity and fun in so many things,. It's quiet, it's not "LOOK at this JOKE" and the story itself isn't adventure by today's standards. But I know I'll keep reading it every time and will probably find new giggles in it. This time, the first giggled came on page 8. The thing is, the first page of text here is page 7.

As I've read this book so often, there are bits are remember well. I supposed it's like that with those big families where the kids clamor for "how did you and dad meet, mom" and you know how it goes but you want to hear it again. That jacket dad wore and the surly waiter. How you walked along for an hour and then forget where you'd parked. The pawnshop guys and "Feed these boys, they're going to California" story. The spaghetti and the flowerpot incident and the occasional "fuzzy miracle". The search for the One True Ring (and yes, all the Tolkein references were there. At this time, Beagle had to explain the references as the LotR was so ubiquitous.

The two friends do shtick with each other that gives me constant giggles. They are the Lone Ranger and Tonto and they are the Brave General and His Men (the men tends to nag.) Describing how hard it is to push a dead Heinkel motor scooter (which I get as someone who has known dead wheelchairs in her time), Beagle says that the only thing harder to push around is "a fully armored knight on ice skates". I just love the image, what can I say?

They're musicians and artists, woefully unprepared for the trip. If I were more organized myself, their inability to set up a tent, the lack of planning and not knowing in advance how to use their new camp stove, the idea that they didn't know how to cook in advance would be annoying. (In one situation, when they actually have repaired something, Phil says, in a rather bemused manner, "That's silly. We don't fix things."

Today's tents seem to sort of snap together – in ISBMO they have wood or metal tent pegs that are not even remotely usable. The way Peter has learned to fix Jenny, his scooter is essentially to assume that Jenny is sentient and just needs a little fussing. Take out the spark plug, wave it around and look concerned, scrape at it a bit with a file, replace it, voila.

There a touch of over the top in the way the guys refer to the scooters as "she" and by name but in the whole of the book, it's not awful. There are far worse sins to commit and the warmth, the amazing abilities that Beagle brings to his observation of people, of the natural world, of the cities and spots-in-the-road that they pass through, it's worth putting up with a touch of the cutes.

Recently, a friend posted about Peter Beagle. He's not the 20 year old child prodigy anymore. He's a writer with a strong list of books, and not a lot of oney. He's asking for folks just to consider buying something. I went and did something I should have done ages ago – got the CD of Beale and Sigunik singing many of the songs they talk about in ISBMYO, by French artists who are only names to me. But oh, one of the cuts on this short (25 minute) performance recording is Phil Sigunik and Peter Beagle singing their signature tune.

For information on Peter S Beagle, who just turned 70, and to see what's going on in his life, please go to http://ymlp193.com/zFNoR2