Constellation Route uses the form of the letter to explore issues related to contemporary American society: the environment, race, love, grief, friendship, violence, and spirituality. The book is largely a metaphysical tribute to both the Post Office and the act of letter writing as a way to understand and create meaningful connections with the world at large.
THE PAPER ROUTE is a murder mystery wrapped in a family saga. It moves from mid-century mill-town, Lowell, Massachusetts to Beat Generation Greenwich Village. The protagonist is a paper girl who, in the course of her daily delivery of the newspaper, unwittingly collects information relevant to an on-going murder investigation.Part mystic-part truant, the paper girl can tell good people from bad at a glance. Compelled to undo a reported injustice, she seeks out and shares her insights with the childless and charmed case detective. Together they solve two murders and inadvertently trigger another.
These political poems employ humor to challenge the cultural norms of American society, focusing primarily on racism, social injustices and inequality. Simultaneously, the poems take on a deeper, personal level as it carefully deconstructs identity and the human experience, piecing them together with unflinching logic and wit. Olzmann takes readers on a surreal exploration of discovery and self-evaluation.
Kermit Lynch's recounting of his experiences on the wine route and in the wine cellars of France takes the reader through the Loire, Bordeaux, the Languedoc, Provence, Northern and Southern Rhone, and the Cote d'Or.
No ordinary guidebook, Sierra High Route leads you from point to point through a spectacular 195-mile timberline route in California's High Sierra. The route follows a general direction but no particular trail, thus causing little or no impact and allowing hikers to experience the beautiful sub-alpine region of the High Sierra in a unique way.
As a child growing up in Malaysia, Shing Yin Khor had two very different ideas of what “America” meant. The first looked a lot like Hollywood, full of beautiful people and sunlight and freeways. The second looked more like The Grapes of Wrath - a nightmare landscape filled with impoverished people, broken-down cars, barren landscapes, and broken dreams. Those contrasting ideas have stuck with Shing ever since, even now that she lives and works in LA. The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 is Shing’s attempt to find what she can of both of these Americas on a solo journey (small adventure-dog included) across the entire expanse of that iconic road, beginning in Santa Monica and ending up Chicago. And what begins as a road trip ends up as something more like a pilgrimage in search of an American landscape that seems forever shifting, forever out of place.
The unforgettable story of one woman who leaves behind her hardscrabble childhood in Alaska to travel the country via freight train—a beautiful memoir about forgiveness, self-discovery, and the redemptive power of nature, perfect for fans of Wild or Educated. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER • “An urgent read. A courageous life. Quinn’s story burns through us and bleeds beauty on every page.”—Noé Álvarez, author of Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America’s Stolen Land After a childhood marked by neglect, poverty, and periods of homelessness, with a mother who believed herself to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, Carrot Quinn moved out on her own. She found a sense of belonging among straight-edge anarchists who taught her how to traverse the country by freight trains, sleep in fields under the stars, and feed herself by foraging in dumpsters. Her new life was one of thrilling adventure and freedom, but still she was haunted by the ghosts of her lonely and traumatic childhood. The Sunset Route is a powerful and brazenly honest adventure memoir set in the unseen corners of the United States—in the Alaskan cold, on trains rattling through forests and deserts, as well as in low-income apartments and crowded punk houses—following a remarkable protagonist who has witnessed more tragedy than she thought she could ever endure and who must learn to heal her own heart. Ultimately, it is a meditation on the natural world as a spiritual anchor, and on the ways that forgiveness can set us free.
It was the way out. Invented on the cusp of the depression, Route 66 was the road out of the mines, off the farm, away from troubled Main Street. It was the road to opportunity. Between 1926 and 1956, many people from the southern and plains states trekked west to California on Route 66, the Mother Road. Some never reached California. Instead, they settled along the road, building restaurants, tourist attractions, gas stations, and motels. The architecture of each structure reflected regional building traditions and the difficulties of the times. The designs of buildings and signs served as invitations for passing travelers to stop, fill their tanks, have a bite, and stay the night. Along Route 66 describes the architectural styles found along the highway from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, and pairs photos with stories of the buildings and of the people who built them, lived in them, and made a living from them. With striking black-and-white images and unforgettable oral histories of this rapidly disappearing architecture, Quinta Scott has docomented the culture of America’s most famous road.
This book is a step back into time and the history of California's Scenic Ridge Route. When it opened in 1915 it was hailed as the "Magnus Opus" of mountain highway engineering. By-passed by the Ridge Alternative in 1933, it was left to the elements and all but forgotten. In this book you will visit sites like Sandberg's famous Summit Hotel where you would have seen Cadillacs, Packards and Studebakers during the road's heyday; the former site of the opulent Hotel Lebec, playground for the world's finest; the Ridge Road House; the National Forest Inn; and Kelly's Half Way House. Motorists faced 697 curves when navigating this famous moutain highway. You will follow "Ridge Route Annie's" adventurous search for gold. Read how highwaymen relieved unsuspecting motorists of their valuables and the 1922 blizzard that stranded scores of motorists. All of this in addition to early history on north - south routes and how Los Angeles had to entice the Butterfield Stage and later the Southern Pacific Railroad in Los Angeles. While this book focuses on the 1915 Scenic Ridge Route, it also addresses the 1930 Ridge Alternative, (U.S. Highway 99) and the current I-5 Ridge Route Highway.
