The book reached #1 on the "New York Times" Best Seller list (Non-Fiction) on October 21, 1962, where it stayed for one week, being replaced by Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" on October 28. In the Steinbeck novel "The Pastures of Heaven", one of the characters regards Robert Louis Stevenson's "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes" as one of the single greatest works of English literature and eventually names his infant son Robert Louis. Later on, Steinbeck and his wife Elaine were inspired by Stevenson in choosing the title "Travels with Charley". In 2010 the Dutch journalist and author Geert Mak traveled the same route Steinbeck had followed, basing himself on the notes from Steinbeck's diary as well as the book. Mak wrote a book about it, called "" (translation from Dutch: "Traveling without John"). He reviews American society and comments on the changes he encounters since Steinbeck traveled the same parts of the country. Steinbeck's narrative has been challenged as partly fictionalized. Bill Steigerwald, a former staff writer for "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" and an associate editor for "Pittsburgh Tribune-Review", followed the route as it is laid out in the "Travels with Charley," and wrote about it in a 2011 article titled "Sorry, Charley," published in "Reason" magazine. He later self-published his analysis in a 2012 book, titled "Dogging Steinbeck". Steigerwald concluded that "Travels" contains such a level of invention, and Steinbeck took such great liberty with the truth, that the work has limited claim to being non-fiction. He uses the dialogue with the itinerant Shakespearean actor near Alice, North Dakota, to exemplify his point. On October 12, Steinbeck wrote a letter to his wife describing a motel in the Badlands where he was staying, on the same date (October 12) as the supposed conversation in Alice. Given that the Badlands are some 350 miles away from Alice, Steigerwald concluded that the conversation with the actor was unlikely to have occurred. Steigerwald also challenges the idea that Steinbeck was "roughing it" during his journey, or that it was a solo voyage, save for Charley. Steigerwald wrote:  Steigerwald was not the only person to claim Steinbeck did not write a purely nonfictional travelogue; Steinbeck's son believed that his father invented much of the dialogue in the book, saying: "He just sat in his camper and wrote all that [expletive]."