Books about Rambles from Amazon.com

“Betcha I can tell ya / Where ya / Got them shoooes / Betchadollar, / Betchadollar, / Where ya / Got them shoooes / Got your shoes on your feet, / Got your feet on the street, / And the street’s in Noo / Awlins, Loo- / Eez-ee-anna. Where I, for my part, first ate a live oyster and first saw a naked woman with the lights on. . . . Every time I go to New Orleans I am startled by something ”

So writes Roy Blount Jr. in this exuberant, character-filled saunter through a place he has loved almost his entire life—a city “like no other place in America, and yet (or therefore) the cradle of American culture.” Here we experience it all through his eyes, ears, and taste buds: the architecture, music, romance (yes, sex too), historical characters, and all that glorious food.

The book is divided into eight Rambles through different parts of the city. Each closes with lagniappe—a little bit extra, a special treat for the reader: here a brief riff on Gennifer Flowers, there a meditation on naked dancing. Roy Blount knows New Orleans like the inside of an oyster shell and is only too glad to take us to both the famous and the infamous sights. He captures all the wonderful and rich history—culinary, literary, and political—of a city that figured prominently in the lives of Jefferson Davis (who died there), Truman Capote (who was conceived there), Zora Neale Hurston (who studied voodoo there), and countless others, including Andrew Jackson, Lee Harvey Oswald, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Jelly Roll Morton, Napoléon, Walt Whitman, O. Henry, Thomas Wolfe, Earl Long, Randy Newman, Edgar Degas, Lillian Hellman, the Boswell Sisters, and the Dixie Cups.

Above all, though, Feet on the Street is a celebration of friendship and joie de vivre in one of America’s greatest and most colorful cities, written by one of America’s most beloved humorists.

Also available as a Random House AudioBook.
Price: $0.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

As logging continues to rule the rural Northwest, Wintergreen's message is more important than ever. Set in the Willapa Hills of southwest Washington, both people and forest are threatened with extinction. Timeless among the literature of the land, Wintergreen is now back in print with a new afterword by the author. This is the first book in Sasquatch's Library of the West series.
Price: $3.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This groundbreaking study focuses on a village called Te in a "Tibetanized" region of northern Nepal. While Te's people are nominally Buddhist, and engage the services of resident Tibetan Tantric priests for a range of rituals, they are also exponents of a local religion that involves blood sacrifices to wild, unconverted territorial gods and goddesses. The village is unusual in the extent to which it has maintained its local autonomy and also in the degree to which both Buddhism and the cults of local gods have been subordinated to the pragmatic demands of the village community.

Charles Ramble draws on extensive fieldwork, as well as 300 years' worth of local historical archives (in Tibetan and Nepali), to re-examine the subject of confrontation between Buddhism and indigenous popular traditions in the Tibetan cultural sphere. He argues that Buddhist ritual and sacrificial cults are just two elements in a complex system of self-government that has evolved over the centuries and has developed the character of a civil religion. This civil religion, he shows, is remarkably well adapted to the preservation of the community against the constant threats posed by external attack and the self-interest of its own members. The beliefs and practices of the local popular religion, a highly developed legal tradition, and a form of government that is both democratic and accountable to its people all these are shown to have developed to promote survival in the face of past and present dangers.

Ramble's account of how both secular and religious institutions serve as the building blocks of civil society opens up vistas with important implications for Tibetan culture as a whole..
Price: $67.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Following on the distinctively hip heels of Ramble: A Field Guide to the U.S.A., seasoned travel writer Eric Peterson kicks off his state-by-state series with the Centennial State's most quirky and intriguing attractions and highlights, as well as regaling five first-person road trips.

Written in a sociologist-meets-Gonzo style, Ramble Colorado alternates between regional chapters and first-person travelogues. The regional chapters dish up the likes of maps, oddball stats, required reading, viewing, and listening lists, and all sorts of atypical tourist destinations, as well as the typical guidebook fare: places to wet your whistle, fill your gullet, and catch some ZZZs. The travelogues offer more vicarious journeys through cities, towns, and beyond, delivered with Peterson's openness to new experiences and self-deprecating humor. Delve into such adventures as "Zen and Longing in the High Country," "The Napa Valley of Beer," and "Colfax Avenue Vacation." With Ramble Colorado in hand, allow the call of the wild road to deliver you to your next idiosyncratic vacation destination in Colorado..
Price: $9.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

When writer David McFadden sets out on a tour of Ireland, he is determined to so do in a relatively innocent state. Using as a guide only In Search of Ireland, a 1930 title by travel writer H. V. Morton, he plans to follow the same route, to try to determine how things have changed and how they have remained the same.

This he proceeds to do – at least at first. But soon he is wandering more and more erratically around the country, poking into any corner and musing over any sight that takes his fancy – from a cozy guest house in Kilcullen to the legendary Hill of Tara, from the south-coast pub run by twin sisters to the windswept reaches of the Ballaghbeama Gap. And increasingly he is drawn to the prehistoric monuments of ancient Ireland. As he goes, he records his very personal impressions in a clear-eyed and wryly humorous way.

Wisely, McFadden also lets the many characters he meets speak for themselves; he loves a good chat and he gives ample space to the various loquacious barmen, shopkeepers, hoteliers, and passersby along the way. And of all the eccentric and appealing characters that he encounters, one of the most intriguing is his travelling companion, the mysterious Spanish chambermaid and poet Lourdes Brasil.

Amusing, quirky, compassionate but unsentimental, An Innocent in Ireland is a treat for any armchair traveller..
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David McFadden travels around Newfoundland Who knows which was most charmed

In An Innocent in Ireland (1995) and An Innocent in Scotland (1999), poet and traveller David McFadden let the spirit of the country – and his own interests – guide his rambles. He has now done the same in Newfoundland.

Zigzagging across the province in his rented car, he charts an erratic course, admiring lawn sculpture (in his opinion a new local art), visiting fellow poets and publishers, wandering at dusk among the Viking mounds at L’Anse aux Meadows, rooming with a Salvation Army family in a distant outport (and discovering a family tragedy), hanging on in a stiff wind to watch birds nesting on a cliff face, and enjoying the social life in countless bars and restaurants.

It soon becomes clear that McFadden’s love of a good chat is shared widely by the people he meets in Newfoundland and he is wise enough to let them tell their own stories. For, as ever, his interest is in the heart of a place – and not just its scenery.

Alert, somewhat eccentric, always ready to amuse and be amused, David McFadden is an ideal travelling companion..
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With a goal of compiling the best places to view the amazing blaze of autumn color that New England is known for, brothers Michael and Mark Tougias offer 15 easy-to-follow routes in six states. Hand-drawn maps lead the rambler through some of the best (and often lesser-known) areas for finding free fall shows in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Take the "Quiet Corner, Northeast Connecticut" section, for example: "Route 169 is as scenic a back road as you will find in southern New England and it is an easy drive from the New York City area or from Southeast Connecticut. Rolling hills, village greens, woodland trails and a diverse assortment of historic sites await your discovery. Some truly first-class inns, restaurants and shops are in this pocket of Connecticut called 'The Quiet Corner.'" Highlights are listed for each of the tours, and for Route 169 these include hayrides, hilltop views, quiet villages, the Prudence Crandall Museum, Roseland Cottage, Old Trinity Church, pumpkin picking, a wolf's den, Golden Lamb at Hillandale Farm, art museums, apple orchards, and the Brayton Gristmill.

Loads of additional resources and accommodations listings are included with each tour. --Kathryn True.
Price: $63.16 [Notify me when price goes down.]