Ocean State Libraries

"A novel about African Americans in Florida that centers on the life of Janie and her three marriages." --

With his bare hands, an axe, and a plentiful supply of Yankee grit, Thoreau carved out his own way of life and thought on the banks of Walden Pond. His meditations ring as true as ever.

In our time Ernest Hemingway - in our time is a collection of 18 short stories that were first published by Ernest Hemingway in 1924. Told his in trademark terse, laconic style, each story vividly immerses the reader--from the trenches and battlefields of WWI to the bullfighting rings and tabernas of Spain. Each sentence exposes Hemingway's talent, and foreshadows his literary significance. This special edition features high-definition illustrations...

Twelve Years a Slave (1853) is considered to be one of the most riveting and important documents recounting slavery in the United States. It is the heart-rending memoir of a free black man who is taken hostage and sold into slavery in a Louisiana plantation, his twelve years of bondage, and his remarkable escape to freedom. Since its publication, this classic has become a historical reference for its salient of depiction of life as a slave in the...

"Autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his personal experiences in working to rise from the position of a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools -- most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama -- to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves,...

"A brief, illustrated, biography of the Baptist minister and civil rights leader whose philosophy and practice of nonviolent civil disobedience helped American blacks win many battles for equal rights." --

"In what has become a landmark of American history and literature, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl recounts the incredible but true story of Harriet Jacobs, born a slave in North Carolina in 1813. Her tale gains its importance from her descriptions, in great and painful detail, of the sexual exploitation that daily haunted her life-and the life of every other black female slave. As a child, Harriet Jacobs remained blissfully unaware that she...

A memoir and family history from acclaimed photographer Sally Mann. Her luminous photographs have become icons of modern art, but Mann also possesses a fearlessness and clarity of vision in her writing as well. As she sets out to understand her parents, Mann unravels threads that lead to discoveries about generations past, the marks they made on the world, and how these reverberate in her life and work today.

""The first thing I can remember," Ben said, "I drew." As an observant young child growing up in Lithuania, Ben Shahn yearns to draw everything he sees-and, after seeing his father banished by the Czar for demanding workers' rights, he develops a keen sense of justice, too. So when Ben and the rest of his family make their way to America, Ben brings with him both his sharp artistic eye and his desire to fight for what's right. As he grows, he speaks...

Former slave, impassioned abolitionist, brilliant writer, newspaper editor and eloquent orator whose speeches fired the abolitionist cause, Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) led an astounding life. Physical abuse, deprivation and tragedy plagued his early years, yet through sheer force of character he was able to overcome these obstacles to become a leading spokesman for his people.
In this, the first and most frequently read of his three autobiographies,...