Ocean State Libraries

A masterwork of science fiction that imagines the world not just how it could be, but how it should be. In Boston in the year 1887, Julian West is hypnotized and falls into a deep sleep. He awakens at the dawn of a new millennium in an America where war, crime, and inequality no longer exist. In this brave new world, goods are delivered in the blink of an eye, public kitchens ensure that no one goes hungry, and the retirement age is forty-five. It...

Pursued by power-hungry Prentiss and mad minister Aaron, young Todd and Viola set out across New World searching for answers about his colony's true past and seeking a way to warn the ship bringing hopeful settlers from Old World.

First published in 1925, "Manhattan Transfer" by American author John Dos Passos is an engrossing portrayal of urban life in New York City from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age. Critically acclaimed and widely considered to be his most important work, Dos Passos tells the story of the city as it grows and changes through the perspectives of many of its inhabitants. The city itself is a central character of the novel. It is exciting and glamorous, but...

A brilliant, illuminating reassessment of the life and work of Jane Austen that makes clear how Austen has been misread for the past two centuries and that shows us how she intended her books to be read, revealing, as well, how subversive and daring—how truly radical—a writer she was.
In this fascinating, revelatory work, Helena Kelly—dazzling Jane Austen authority—looks past the grand houses, the pretty young women, past the...

As a world-ending war surges to life around them, Todd and Viola face monstrous decisions, questioning all they have ever known as they try to step back from the darkness and find the best way to achieve peace.

"A clear-eyed warning about the increasingly destructive influence of America's "shame industrial complex" in the age of social media and hyperpartisan politics from the New York Times bestselling author of Weapons of Math Destruction. Shame is a powerful and sometimes useful tool: When we publicly shame corrupt politicians, abusive celebrities, or predatory corporations, we reinforce values of fairness and justice. But as Cathy O'Neil argues in this...

For years Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Argentina-- now Pope Francis-- and Rabbi Abraham Skorka were tenacious promoters of interreligious dialogues on faith and reason. They both sought to build bridges among Catholicism, Judaism, and the world at large. This work, originally published in Argentina in 2010, brings together a series of these conversations where both men talked about various theological and worldly issues, including...

Who we are, where we’ve been, and where we need to go now, to recapture the American dream
 
Now with a new Foreword by the author.
 
“The best presentation of the challenges facing the country—and the possible solutions—I've ever seen.”—P. J. O’Rourke
 
Tom Brokaw, known and beloved for his landmark work in American journalism and...

At first contemptuous of the street gangs' world, a middle-class girl, through fascination with one gang's ritual and hierarchy, becomes the property of the Orphans' leader, who counters her devotion with betrayals, violence, addiction, and drug pushing.