Armchair Travel
December 2020
On November 17, Siouxland Libraries moved its audiobooks from the RBdigital app to OverDrive. You can now access titles through the OverDrive website, the OverDrive app, and OverDrive’s newest app, called Libby.

Why the change?
RBdigital merged with OverDrive and the RBdigital app will be retired at the end of this year. 
 
What do I do now?
Holds on your RBdigital account did NOT transfer to OverDrive. However, you can download the OverDrive or Libby app and place new holds today.

To learn more about RBdigital’s transition to OverDrive, click here, or call us at 367-8700.
Recent Releases
A Measure of Belonging
by Cinelle Barnes (editor)

What it is: A collection of wide-ranging essays about belonging written by people of color who have lived or are living in the Southern United States.

Writers include: Kiese Laymon; Toni Jensen; Soniah Kamal; Joy Priest; Natalia Sylvester; Regina Bradley; Aruni Kashyap; Ivelisse Rodriguez.

Reviewers say: "A sweet Southern sampling" (Kirkus Reviews); "a clear and nuanced picture of the contemporary south, delivered with humor, sass, and pride" (Booklist).
The Deepest South of All
by Richard Grant

What it is: A mix of history and travelogue that presents a fascinating portrait of Natchez, Mississippi, tracing the city's past and present and its remarkable contradictions.

Read it for: Intriguing stories about locals, including a 19th-century enslaved West African prince and modern-day feuding garden club members.

Why you might like it: Vibrant writing; eye-opening history; the examination of racism through the lens of one town. 
Blue Sky Kingdom
by Bruce Kirkby

Featuring: Canadian TV journalist Bruce Kirkby, his introverted wife Christine, their highly intelligent autistic seven-year-old son Bodi, and their free-spirited three-year-old son Taj.

What happened: From British Columbia, they slow traveled (no planes!) for three months, making their way to South Korea, India, China, and Nepal, and then stayed at a Buddhist monastery for three months.

For fans of: Rich, uplifting family travelogues; the Travel Channel's Big Crazy Family Adventure, which covers the first part of their trip. 
On All Fronts
by Clarissa Ward

What it is: The absorbing memoir of an award-winning journalist (now CNN's chief international correspondent), covering her unconventional childhood and drawing on her nearly two decades of experience reporting from Beirut, Baghdad, Syria, Egypt, and more.

Don't miss: Her Moscow encounter with Muammar Gaddafi's lecherous son; her time on the set of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill in Beijing.

Read this next: Lynsey Addario's It's What I Do; Janine di Giovanni's The Morning They Came For Us.
The National Road
by Tom Zoellner

What's inside: 14 entertaining, evocative essays filled with incisive musings on change and place and covering the author's eclectic travels, usually in a car, across the U.S. over three decades.

Locations include: Spillville, Iowa (where Dvořák composed Symphony No. 9); a porn studio in Los Angeles; the streets of St. Louis; a Mormon historical site after hours; his grandmother's house in Arizona.

For fans of: Paul Theroux's Deep South; James and Deborah Fallows' Our Towns. 
The Great Outdoors
Desert Solitaire
by Edward Abbey

What it is: A classic account, first published in 1968, of author Edward Abbey's experiences, observations, and reflections as a seasonal park ranger in 1950s Arches National Monument in Utah, including a trip by boat down Glen Canyon.

Want a taste? "The ravens cry out in husky voices, blue-black wings flapping against the golden sky."

Read this next: For another lyrical look at national parks, pick up Terry Tempest Williams' The Hour of the Land. 
Leave Only Footprints
by Conor Knighton

The impetus: His fiancée unexpectedly called things off (and then got engaged to her co-worker), leaving him at a crossroads.

What it is: A thematically arranged (Animals, God, Ice, Love, People, etc.), personal look at 59 U.S. national parks over the course of a year.

Did you know? As part of a video series on the National Park Service's 100th anniversary in 2016, the author, a CBS Sunday Morning correspondent, also did TV segments at several of the locations he visited.
Wayfinding
by M.R. O'Connor

What it's about: After getting lost in New Mexico due to a GPS fail, M.R. O'Connor became fascinated with older methods of navigation, so she met with scientists and traveled to the Arctic, Australia, and Oceania to learn about traditional wayfinding. 

Read it for: The vivid descriptions; the multidisciplinary approach to the topic; the intriguing look at spatial cognition and memory. 

Reviewers say: "Her narrative is a marvel of storytelling on its own merits, erudite but lightly worn" (Kirkus Reviews). 
Upstream
by Mary Oliver

What's inside: A lyrical collection of essays by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver, who died in 2019, that describes her lifelong wanderings in nature and how it inspired her creatively.

Why you might like it: Oliver contemplates artistic labor, observation, and great thinkers and writers of the past.

Want a taste? "I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple."
Contact your librarian for more great books!
Siouxland Libraries
200 North Dakota Avenue
P.O. Box 7403
Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57117
605-367-8700
www.siouxlandlib.org