Ocean State Libraries

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.

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.

"Which should prevail: loyalty to family or loyalty to the truth? Is telling the truth ever a mistake and is lying for one's family ever justified? Can one do the right thing, but bitterly regret it? My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age twelve, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African-American boy by her older brothers....

"Thomas Paine's Common Sense first appeared on January 10, 1776, and the stroke of luck it enjoyed upon its appearance could hardly have been calculated to great effect. The political tract immediately became the moral and intellectual touchstone for American colonists struggling to articulate their case for independence from England. It sold over 120,000 copies within three months of its publication. the United States of America owes its existence...

The leader of contemporary feminist theory discusses such issues as racism, self-acceptance, and mother- and woman-hood. Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, SISTER OUTSIDER celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle...

"An exquisite memoir about how to live--and love--every day with 'death in the room, ' from poet Nina Riggs, mother of two young sons and the direct descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in the tradition of When Breath Becomes Air. 'We are breathless, but we love the days. They are promises. They are the only way to walk from one night to the other.' Nina Riggs was just thirty-seven years old when initially diagnosed with breast cancer--one small spot....

Traditional areas of civic agreement are vanishing. We can't agree on what makes America special. We can't even agree that America is special. We're coming to the point that we can't even agree what the word America itself means. "Disintegrationists" say we're stronger together, but their assault on America's history, philosophy, and culture will only tear us apart. Who are the disintegrationists? From Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United...

"John Kaag is a dispirited young philosopher at sea in his marriage and his career when he stumbles upon West Wind, a ruin of an estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that belonged to the eminent Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. Hocking was one of the last true giants of American philosophy and a direct intellectual descendent of William James, the father of American philosophy and psychology, with whom Kaag feels a deep kinship. It...