Subversive guy, this Jack Lewis. Yes, he entertains and informs — cloaking it all in motorcycles — but linger a bit with his writings and you’ll find he makes you think. Be ready for that.– Reg KittrelleFounder, Thunder Press
“Top 10 Rider’s Library Picks: Jack Lewis takes the overall literary crown” – Ultimate Motorcycling
Head Check invites readers to take in the color and detail of a rider’s life vividly realized, richly observed, and transcendently described. During his tenure at Motorcyclist magazine, Jack Lewis has touched readers around the world not only through his incandescent prose riffs and self-effacing humor, but also through a consistent and deeply felt humanity.
This collection of magazine features and columns alongside personally published web pieces and new material may be populated by motorcycles, but it centers around the varied experiences of riders (and their tolerant keepers) in a world where risk is a bet you make with yourself for purposes that must always transcend mere recreation. Head Check is – beneath the sarcastic wit, wide-eyed fear, profound humility, and occasional descents into scatology – a collection of love stories. Recommended for riders, readers, passengers, and humans.
Head Check: What it Feels Like to Ride Motorcycles is 304 pages and was released December 11th, 2014. It is available on Amazon.com, Litsam.com. Also available signed in the Seattle area from Ride West BMW, Seattle Used Bikes and Ophelia’s Books, in the Tacoma area from South Sound BMW and in Portland from Moto Corsa.
I want to be clear- this is not reading just for motorcyclists, or just the spouses or children of motorcyclists. These essays are a call to the senses to follow our bliss, to cherish that and those we love… To pay better attention to our ways of living. Picking up this book in this grey winter month is the perfect cold splash to wake up the senses… To get your heart started… To plan your next journey… To delight in the life you have wrapped around you.
– JocieO
This book is a collection of articles written by Jack Lewis for Motorcyclist Magazine, with some added material in many of the articles that got edited out to make them fit, plus a few pieces that have not previously been published. The book contains the best of the best.
– Lyle D. Gunderson
Lewis invites you along on his adventures in living…at your own risk. His ability to survive direct hits to his body and psyche fill this book and promise a collection to come. Humor, tenderness, humility, rage and heartache blend together from experiences as a wounded warrior now returned home, a rider on wheels eager to obey until they can’t and a husband and father in a quest for sanity and forgiveness.
– Wendy Dahl
Jack’s writing never fails to make you really sit and think hard about life and motorcycles. This is the second book of Jack’s I have read and both were hard to put down once I started reading them.
– Chris
Jack Lewis’s book, Head Check: What it Feels Like to Ride Motorcycles is a masterpiece of moto word craft. I can’t begin to describe how it speaks to me from every page. If I could, I would be as great an author as Jack Lewis. Read this book. People like it. You will too.
– VintageDirt “Wes Baca”
If you’re going to buy one motorcycling book, this is the one. Jack Lewis writes from experience with passion, clarity, and depth about the many ways that motorcycles inspire, teach, and even heal those who ride. This is not just the good stuff; this is the best stuff.
– John Davis
I have been riding motorcycles for 55 years and the writers on the subject that truly capture my attention and hold it are few and far between. Jack Lewis is one of those rare people who can seize my interest and imagination and take me on a thoughtful and exciting journey.
– Derek Hamlet
Jack Lewis’ though-provoking prose will make you reconsider what you think about riding and riders (of all kinds). His profound humility and humor come through in each story
– Ranger M
(See the rest of Jack’s reviews on Amazon.)
"Jack Lewis takes the overall literary crown with his new book...there’s a lot more to Lewis’s work than what it feels like to ride motorcycles.” — Ultimate Motorcycling
"Insightful and from the heart ... a driven and much recommended look into the mind and conflict of the next generation of war veterans. " — Midwest Book Review (Reviewer's Choice)