Ready for a break yet? If you’re feeling restless, consider taking a few statewide drives while listening to some seriously good travel stories. Or if that isn’t an option, you might do the same while lounging in the backyard sunshine. About a decade ago, when the economic downturn wreaked havoc on many vacation budgets, NPR produced a series of story collections in a Road Trips series narrated by beloved All Things Considered host Noah Adams. Within these anthologies, “each story focuses on real locations, real people, and real history in the thought-provoking, imaginative and entertaining way you’ve come to expect from NPR.”* You can find the series on hoopla, now available through the Abbot Public Library for free with your Marblehead card!
Roaming over the vast expanse of the U. S. and beyond, the entries in this series are loosely grouped by theme. Roadside Attractions presents an array of wacky, Guinness-Record-worthy oddities, the sort that provoke gasps of “why would anyone have ever thought of doing that?” Even so, there’s something endearingly niche and nostalgic about a “thirteen-foot Styrofoam scale model of Stonehenge.”* You’ll smell the popcorn as Fairs and Festivals holds up a fun-house mirror to the nation, giving listeners a glimpse of fairground culture in both urban and rural settings–where “people of all stripes and sizes meet to gawk at cows, ponder seed art, get hypnotized, compete in husband-calling contests, and eat virtually anything on a stick.”*
Anyone who has ever taken to the open road with their nearest and dearest can imagine the range of mishap-laden tales offered in Family Vacations. With titles like “Who Needs a Fancy Cruise If You’ve Got Inner Tubes?” by Tom Goldman, you can’t go wrong. National Park Adventures won’t fail to entertain, either, and you can even broaden your horizons–passport-free–by accompanying NPR correspondents around the world in Postcards from Around the Globe.
If you feel like binge-listening over 21 days and want to save on your monthly borrows, you might want to check out the entire NPR Road Trips Collection, which presents all five of the above titles in six hours. Whatever takes your fancy, you can know that your choices are always available–no holds, no waits!
If you’re new to hoopla, have a look at our FAQs page and easily hop on. If you don’t currently have a library card, get started here.
Happy trails to you!
*Quoted material from the publisher via hoopladigital.com.
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