Ocean State Libraries

Kya Clark is the "Marsh Girl" of Barkley Cove on the North Carolina coast. Abandoned at age ten, she has survived on her own in the marsh that she calls home. A born naturalist, she took life lessons from the land, learning from the false signals of fireflies the real way of this world. Drawn to two young men from town who were intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opened herself to a new and startling world-- until the unthinkable happens. When Chase...

"In [his earlier book] 'Making Toast', Roger Rosenblatt shared the story of his family in the days and months after the death of his thirty-eight-year-old daughter, Amy. Now, in 'Kayak Morning', he offers a personal meditation on grief itself. 'Everybody grieves,' he writes. From that terse, melancholy observation emerges a work of art that addresses the universal experience of loss. On a quiet Sunday morning, two and a half years after Amy's death,...

Boot and Shoe are dogs that live in the same house, eat from the same bowl, and sleep in the same bed but spend their days on separate porches until a squirrel mixes things up.

"It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts--or, at least, refuge. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she...

"A celebration of the joy and comfort to be found in alone time and the joy and comfort that a friend can bring"--

The narrator explains why it is sometimes nice to be alone.

"For readers of Jon Krakauer and The Lost City of Z, a remarkable tale of survival and solitude--the true story of a man who lived alone in a tent in the Maine woods, never talking to another person and surviving by stealing supplies from nearby cabins for twenty-seven years. In 1986, twenty-year-old Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the woods. He would not have a conversation with another human...

"Thoughtful and affirming, this collection of essays about the joys and struggles of being alone illuminates an experience that is rarely openly discussed." --

Text and illustrations describe some of the special things that one can do alone.

Years after losing his lower right leg in a motorcycle crash, Robert Kull traveled to a remote island in Patagonia's coastal wilderness with equipment and supplies to live alone for a year. He sought to explore the effects of deep solitude on the body and mind and to find the spiritual answers he'd been seeking all his life. With only a cat and his thoughts as companions, he wrestled with inner storms while the wild forces of nature raged around him....