Rhode Island Books

It's difficult to give my daughter a taste of RI while living in CA. This book is wonderful at helping to make her a Rhode Islander! Not only are the illustrations beautiful, but the content is informative as well. I even learned some things, and I lived in RI my whole life!

This book is great for all ages...I bought it for a 5 month old..and his Mom just loves it..my grandson also has one and loves it... great price too!

This is a lovely piece of travel writing about the Island of Rhodes by a master observer of both the human character and the land- and seascapes with which Greece and its islands always delight us. It is a richly sensuous account of Durrell's years in the British civil service just after the end of WWII and just before the island is handed back to Greece. The eye is feted with descriptions of fields, hills, oranges and lemons, and flowers of every form and color. Sounds range from the rhythm of the sea (alternately savage and soothing) to Greek folk songs to sparkling conversation with Brit expatriates (including Gideon the half-sighted wonder). The author even offers a neat summation of a Greek picnic in tems of smells: petrol, garlic, wine and goat. Intermingled with these delicious attacks on the senses there is the play of light over the island as the sun moves across the sky and its rays are filtered through sea mist, mythology and the grim reality of having to rebuild a nation and an island after Nazi cruelty has left it a shambles. Like it or not, the reader is filled in on some mildly interesting points in the author's understanding of ancient history and the medieval Knights of St. John, who came into possession of the island for a time. The last section is about an enormous cookout in honor of a saint at whose shrine miracles have been know to occur, even raising the dead. It is a stroke of irony that during the festivities a young child is run over by a truck and dies the following day despite the best efforts of Mills, a good hearted but overextended British doctor. All in all, this is a delightful book, highly recommendable for those who enjoy travel writing. But Durrell is no Rebecca West, and this is not an example of the best Durrell. But it isn't bad Durrell, either.

Lawrence Durrell wrote this little book based on his life on Rhodes after World War II. This a more mature and settled Durrell than the young man who first brought us "Prospero's Cell" about Corfu or who wrote the "Alexandria Quartet" from Egypt during the war. Durrell's work is a time machine, taking the reader back to recovering Rhodes amidst poverty, sunshine, vibrant villages, and sparkling seas. His eye is fresh and clear, and his descriptions transport the reader to a place and time that are ageless and real. Another small classic!

Reviewed by David Lundberg, author of Olympic Wandering: Time Travel Through Greece

This guidebook is divided into eight sections by geographic region, with a top-level map up front and detailed maps of each location by section. The entire book is black and white, but the maps and pictures are still crystal clear. The opening chapter is an index referencing any subject one could want to find in Rhode Island, from ballooning to antiques to quahogs to yachting. I was most impressed with the "Green Spaces" section for each region, listing dozens of outdoor parks and activities available in the Ocean State. While there are certainly other more detailed outdoor guidebooks to Rhode Island, they haven't been updated recently, and this is a great overview guide to the riches of "green space" available in Little Rhody. Also included are beaches with recommendations about what outdoor activities are appropriate at each. Plus, if you want to visit historic houses, historic churches, historic mansions, or general historic sites, this is the state and the guidebook for you.

For Activities, price information is noticeably missing. Perhaps detailed prices date a guidebook too much, but as a traveler, I'd like to get an idea whether this boat excursion or that historic house is within my general budget. Restaurants, on the other hand, are broken into price categories, and include terse yet informative descriptive information about the cuisine, location, and atmosphere. As a native, I'm well aware that hotels in Rhode Island are just plain more expensive than they are in other parts of the country. If you want to sleep in luxury, you can find some great direction from this guide. For a deal, I'd recommend utilizing Internet search engines. The low single-dollar-sign category in this book refers to hotels under a "mere" $95 (as of 2000).

There is something to be said for compact guidebooks, and this is not one. It is a generously oversized paperback with thick pages and both large fonts and margins. This isn't a book to tuck into your extra backpack pocket when trekking around. Then again, all that extra text left the authors room to inform me that Goddard Park was man-made by two generations of owners and is cited as one of the best man-made forestry projects of all time. Now, that's a new fact to try out on my parents!

This is a great book! Every time I am stumped on a local history question I can turn to this book and find the answer painlessly. As a guide to restaurants and attractions it just can't be beat. I recommend this book to locals and visitors as a great reference source.

A handy sized, informative guide to rivers in our area. We have used this to plan numerous trips on rivers and have found the guide to be (relatively) accurate and easy to use. Having said that, we discovered (duh!) that rivers change over time and that this guide is a great STARTING point for trip planning. Good scouting and maybe talking to people with experience on the river in question are valuable parts of good trip prep. There is a website for the book where people can submit changes or inaccuracies that they have discovered - this helps to keep the guide current. All in all one of the best we've looked at.

My whole family - my generation, plus my parents and grandparents - grew up sailing in Newport and had ties to the America's Cup races. I like having all of the historical photos in one book. Well worth the purchase price - it brings back so many fond memories.

I found the atlas to be very accurate, easy to read and most of all a great deal for the price. I used it extensively on my New England vacation and highly recommend it to anyone who plans to visit the New England states.

What can i say?? Arnold will never stop surprising me. This book is written in a way, that you only find out what the others feeling, after too much time has passed. It bring a smile upon your face, and tears in your eyes. It make your heart swell, and feel everything the heroin is feeling. Recommend it to everyone that land their hands on them.

This is an enormous book in physical extent, too large for a standard book shelf if set in with spine out, probably 12 by 15 inches in landscape format. It is the equivalent of a Navy "cruise book",an Army basic training mug book, or an academic class year book.
I hav not seen this in some twenty years so bear with me. I first encountered it in the University of Texas-Austin library in 1975. Later I saw a copy on the loose but at that time I was broke.
For its genre this is an excellent production. The battery was part of a National Guard regiment raised from wel-to-do college men from New England. As is typical of such memory books, it contains many pictures of unit members at work and play, a chronology, some recounting of the soldiers' activities, and phtos of all the unit members.
This is not a must for one seeking history. One shourld rather seek out other books; detialed "Our National Military Problem" by Capt Irving Goff McCann recounting the encounters of a typical Guard officer along with politcal and social comments. Nor is it as derailed as the substantial memoir by Roger Batchelder of EM life in a machne gun company. These two books I have had for many, many years and have reread them several times over seeking details of aoldier life and the Guardsmens' experiences. To most of the Guardmen, from humid areas in the East and Midwest the arid border was as foreign as would have been a trip to Africa.
There would probably be as many of these memoirs and memory books as there were for the Phillipine War of 1899-1902, much less thsn those of the War with Spain, and buried by the thousands published on the War Between the States. But this was not to be for soon after the last Guard units went home in early 1917, they were remobilized for the Great War. During the course of the mobiization for modern warfare,the Organized Militia Units were combined or disbanded, and many of the "gentlemen rankers", the middle and upper class men who had been on the border as EM were promoted to officer ranks and moved on A few WW I unit histories include brief sections on their pre-war predecessors but very few. Thus the insitutional memory of the Border faded almost immediately. There was never the equivalent of the Order of the Caribou, organized from officers who served in the Phillipines, or the unit reunions ehich occrred for the Rought Riders.
Worth having if you are a completist but not vital as a historical work.

I give this cookbook as gifts all the time. I've had it myself for years and I enjoy cooking from it. It is truly "New England" cooking and the recipes are fantastic!

All criminal lawyers in Providence are in grave danger of demonic possession.

Find and make friends with someone proficient in Voodoo - their talents can come in handy.

You never know what you will find in an antique shop in Rhode Island