A nomad and a swindler embark on an eccentric road trip in this picaresque, philosophical novel by the author of The Man Who Planted Trees. The south of France, 1950: A solitary vagabond walks through the villages, towns, valleys, and foothills of the region between northern Provence and the Alps. He picks up work along the way and spends the winter as the custodian of a walnut-oil mill. He also picks up a problematic companion: a cardsharp and con man, whom he calls “the Artist.” The action moves from place to place, and episode to episode, in truly picaresque fashion. Everything is told in the first person, present tense, by the vagabond narrator, who goes unnamed. He himself is a curious combination of qualities—poetic, resentful, cynical, compassionate, flirtatious, and self-absorbed. While The Open Road can be read as loosely strung entertainment, interspersed with caustic reflections, it can also be interpreted as a projection of the relationship of author, art, and audience. But it is ultimately an exploration of the tensions and boundaries between affection and commitment, and of the competing needs for solitude, independence, and human bonds. As always in Jean Giono, the language is rich in natural imagery and as ruggedly idiomatic as it is lyrical.

After the end of World War II, the American road trip began appearing prominently in literature, music, movies, and photography. Many photographers embarked on trips across the U.S. in order to create work, including Robert Frank, whose seminal 1955 road trip resulted in The Americans. However, he was preceded by Edward Weston, who traveled across the country taking pictures to illustrate Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass; Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose 1947 trip through the American South and into the West was published in the early 1950s in Harper's Bazaar; and Ed Ruscha, whose road trips between Los Angeles and Oklahoma later became Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Hundreds of photographers have continued the tradition of the photographic road trip on down to the present, from Stephen Shore to Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs. The Open Road considers the photographic road trip as a genre in and of itself, and presents the story of photographers for whom the American road is muse. The book features David Campany's introduction to the genre and eighteen chapters presented chronologically, each exploring one American road trip in depth through a portfolio of images and informative texts, highlighting some of the most important bodies of work made on the road from The Americans to present day.

A Smithsonian Best History Book of the Year Winner of the Littleton-Griswold Prize Winner of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award Winner of the Order of the Coif Award Winner of the Sidney M. Edelstein Prize Winner of the David J. Langum Sr. Prize in American Legal History Winner of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize “From traffic stops to parking tickets, Seo traces the history of cars alongside the history of crime and discovers that the two are inextricably linked.” —Smithsonian When Americans think of freedom, they often picture the open road. Yet nowhere are we more likely to encounter the long arm of the law than in our cars. Sarah Seo reveals how the rise of the automobile led us to accept—and expect—pervasive police power, a radical transformation with far-reaching consequences. Before the twentieth century, most Americans rarely came into contact with police officers. But in a society dependent on cars, everyone—law-breaking and law-abiding alike—is subject to discretionary policing. Seo challenges prevailing interpretations of the Warren Court’s due process revolution and argues that the Supreme Court’s efforts to protect Americans did more to accommodate than limit police intervention. Policing the Open Road shows how the new procedures sanctioned discrimination by officers, and ultimately undermined the nation’s commitment to equal protection before the law. “With insights ranging from the joy of the open road to the indignities—and worse—of ‘driving while black,’ Sarah Seo makes the case that the ‘law of the car’ has eroded our rights to privacy and equal justice...Absorbing and so essential.” —Paul Butler, author of Chokehold “A fascinating examination of how the automobile reconfigured American life, not just in terms of suburbanization and infrastructure but with regard to deeply ingrained notions of freedom and personal identity.” —Hua Hsu, New Yorker

More than 80 poems by 50 American and British masters celebrate real and metaphorical journeys. Poems by Whitman, Byron, Millay, Sandburg, Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Shelley, Tennyson, Yeats, many others.

Fans of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love will enjoy author Toby Neal’s road trip travel memoir of self-discovery as she and her husband journey through the National Parks! I had a dream to live a “normal” life and I attained it; but along the way, I lost myself. My story began in Freckled: a Memoir of Growing up Wild in Hawaii, but it continued after I married the man of my dreams, completed my education with multiple degrees, had a successful career, and raised two beautiful children. I sacrificed to get to where I was. Though I didn’t regret anything, flat on my back in the doctor’s office on the cusp of my fiftieth birthday, my health was crumbling. I no longer recognized myself. I turned my head and saw a calendar on the wall: Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah beckoned me with its mysterious sandstone hoodoos. A road trip traveling through the National Parks was just what I needed to rediscover the girl I’d been; it could help me turn a corner into my new career as a writer, and my husband would enjoy a chance to photograph the natural wonders we saw. Sometimes, a twelve-thousand-mile road trip is also a personal quest. An absorbing travel narrative about defining and facing the limitations and opportunities of midlife.An absorbing travel narrative about defining and facing the limitations and opportunities of midlife. —Kirkus Reviews

A year out of high school in the early 1950s, New Jersey mechanic Buddy Palumbo falls in love with two things at once: race car driving with its speed and adventure, and his boss' niece, Miss Julie Finzio

Myra wants to quit her job. Kabir is looking to resign from the board. Sandy just dropped out of college. Discover yourself within these restless twenty-somethings as they stand at the cusp of making life-changing decisions. Battling their inner demons and societal taboos, they wish to live life on their own terms. But their journey entails a devastating personal loss, an undying fear and a host of obstacles. Will they be able to realize their shared dream of establishing a start-up? Or will they succumb to the hardships on their road to freedom?

This catalogue illustrates the creative life of the most prestigious European and American car manufacturers and their models, from the end of the 1940s to the present day.

Walt Whitman's poem was first published in the 1856 collection Leaves of Grass.