Ocean State Libraries

"Part travelog, part culinary history, all capitalist critique-comedian Jamie Loftus's debut, Raw Dog, will take you on a cross-country road trip in the summer of 2021, and reveal what the creation, culture, and class influence of hot dogs says about America now. Hot dogs. Poor people created them. Rich people found a way to charge fifteen dollars for them. They're high culture, they're low culture, they're sports food, they're kids' food, they're...

"As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she craved--to be an explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and metaphysician--had gone extinct. From what she could tell of the world from small-town Ontario, the likes of Marco Polo and Magellan had mapped the whole earth; there was nothing left to be discovered. Looking beyond this planet, she decided to become a scientist and go to Mars. In between studying at Oxford and MIT, Harris set off by bicycle...

In The City at Three PM, award-winning fiction writer Peter LaSalle offers 11 startlingly original personal essays dealing with his longtime quest for world travel of the literary sort. The range of offbeat experiences is wide from driving recklessly across the county when young to seek out Saul Bellow in Chicago, to settling in for long evenings at a pub in Dublin with Christy Brown, the celebrated Irish author afflicted with cerebral palsy who typed...

"A wholly original history of France, filled with a lifetime's knowledge and passion-by the author of the New York Times bestseller Parisians. Beginning with the Roman army's first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending in the era of Emmanuel Macron, France takes readers on an endlessly entertaining journey through French history. Frequently hilarious, always surprising, Graham Robb's France combines the stylistic versatility of a novelist with...

In The Atlas, William T. Vollmann presents his vision of our planet at the cusp, with old conflicts smoldering on and new miseries and estrangements multiplying. Bosnia, Phnom Penh, Jerusalem, New York, Mogadishu, the Arctic, a bazaar of fortune-tellers in Burma, a robber-infested disco in Madagascar - against these backdrops, Vollmann's tales live their own various and wildly different lives, from fable to surrealistic portrait to reportage. Above...

"From the National Book Award-winning author of Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men, an epic, revelatory work that recollects the travels around the world and the encounters--human, animal, and natural--that have shaped an extraordinary life. Taking us nearly from pole to pole--and across decades of lived experience--Barry Lopez gives us his most far-ranging yet personal work to date, in a book that moves through six regions of the world: from western...

A collection of the 500 most alluring travel experiences on the planet! The perfect resource for travelers who crave adventurous trips, or those searching for specific experiences, this title has been fully revised and updated just in time for its 10th anniversary. The characters are organized by means of transportation. They are designed to help you plan your trip, telling you the best time to visit, sights you can't miss, and how to get there, as...

"Featuring communist bunkers, burning gas craters and at least one sponge-rock flourescent grotto built by Polish monks, this book reveals weird and wonderful sights that the crowds don't reach. From eerie natural wonders to historical oddities and bizarre architecture, this is a travel companion for the incurably curious" -- page 4 of cover. Takes readers on a journey through the worlds lesser known marvels, from a pumpkin regatta in Oregon to Lithuania's...