The Rhode Island Center for the Book is proud to participate in the Route 1 Reads project sponsored by the East Coast Centers for the Book! Centers for the Book in every state from Maine to Florida chose a book to represent their state.
For 2015, The Rhode Island Center for the Book’s Read1Book is The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri; a story about the different paths of two brothers in post-independence India, one follows the revolutionary Naxalite movement in Calcutta and the other leaves India to pursue graduate studies at URI.
Lahiri, says, “this is the first novel where I really felt that I wanted to write about Rhode Island. I wrote a piece some years ago for an anthology called State by State that was edited by Sean Wilsey and Matt Weiland. I think it was at a point where I was just beginning to get into the writing of The Lowland. Having written that essay, having confronted for the first time this fact of my life—that I had been raised in Rhode Island, a place I never really knew, an experience I never fully came to terms with in some ways—helped me, and I thought, O.K., I would like to set this book in Rhode Island, consciously, and name it as such. So I did, and I think that it liberated me in some way to really think about it and write about it and remember it in a fuller way.”
The Lowland Reviews:
About Route1 Reads
The State Centers for the Book linked by US Route 1, which extends from Fort Kent, Maine, to Key West, Florida, are joining together to promote books that illuminate important aspects of their states/commonwealths for readers travelling the major and meandering highway.
Sneak Peek of Route 1 Reads @ the State Centers for the Book:
Maine – The Precipice by Paul Dorion
New Hampshire – Colorful Journey by Sue Anne Bottomley
Massachusetts – Revere Beach Elegy by Roland Merullo
Rhode Island – The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
New York – Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
New Jersey – The Great American Roadtrip: U.S.1 by Peter Genovese
Pennsylvania – Dr. Mutter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
Washington, DC – The Big Blowdown by George Pelecanos
Maryland – Kindred by Octavia Butler
Delaware – Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Beer from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery by Sam Calagione
Virginia – Backroads & Byways of Virginia: Drives, Day Trips & Weekend Excursions by Bill Lohmann
North Carolina – Bob Garner’s Book of Barbeque by Bob Garner
South Carolina – Minnow by James E. McTeer II
Georgia – Farm Fresh Georgia by Jodi Helmer
Florida – Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean by Les Standiford
This travel-oriented booklist highlights each individual state while celebrating the East Coast as a whole. The Route1 Reads list includes regional cookbooks, travel memoirs, location-based novels, time-travel, and more. Take a literary trip with another East Coast Center for the Book! By participating in Route 1 Reads, you’ll travel without a single footstep, get recommendations, and see what Centers for the Book offer across 15 states!
About US 1: US 1 enters Rhode Island via a small bridge from Pawcatuck, CT to Downtown Westerly. Route 1 winds through Downtown Westerly, passing two shopping plazas (the Granite Street Shopping Center and the Franklin Shopping Plaza) prior to a junction with RI 78, the two-lane highway designed to bypass Downtown. A right onto Airport Road at this intersection provides access to Westerly State Airport, Watch Hill and Misquamicut. Route 1 continues to Dunn’s Corners, with Langworthy Road providing more beach access. The road then becomes a divided highway shortly after, with RI 1A merging into the highway from the Misquamicut area. Route 1 then crosses into Charlestown, RI near Shelter Harbor. After stoplight intersections with Ross Hill Road (RI 216), West Beach Road-providing access to Quonochontaug, East Beach Road-providing access to Blue Shutters Town Beach and East Beach, and Wildflower Road, there are no more stoplights until the end of the freeway after the Wakefield, RI exits. Access to exits on the opposite side of the road is provided through u-turn ramps. The southbound side has junction with Prosser Trail, a road leading to Burlingame State Park. Burlingame access is also located prior to the East Beach Road exit. An exit for Route 1A on the northbound side leads to Ningret Park and the police station. Route 1 bends to the right. On the southbound side is Kings Factory Road. Another junction with Route 1A occurs on Route 1 North. 1A merges onto 1 from the south, briefly, before exiting and continuing north to Cross Mills. Route 1 north then features a ramp providing access to Cross Mills and Route 1A-leading to Charlestown Breachway and Charlestown Town Beach-for those just merging in on a u-turn from Route 1 south via a junction with RI 2 / RI 112 (South County Trail). Another set of u-turn ramps is located for access to Routes 2 and 112. After northbound junctions with more beach access roads (Falcone Lane, Narrow Lane, which is split in half by the highway, the other half continuing on the southbound side that leads to South County Trail), US 1 continues into South Kingstown, where Green Hill Beach Road (Route 1A) meets US 1 on the northbound side, and Post Road (also Route 1A) meets Route 1 south. After a junction with Moonstone Beach Road (northbound side leads to the Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge, southbound side leads to Perryville), RI 110 meets Route 1 south. Prior to this on the southbound side, Route 1A meets Route 1. Back to the northbound side, where Matunuck Beach Road is found, leading to the beachside community of Matunuck, RI. Following this is Succotash Road, which leads to Jerusalem, RI, Snug Harbor, and East Matunuck State Beach. Then comes Post Road, leading to the signed destination-Jerry Brown Farm Road. Another Post Road/Route 1A junction comes on US 1 north, before it meets the highway again after a brief exit less stint. Route 1 south’s junction with Post Road/Route 1A north leads to Wakefield and Peace-Dale. The road becomes a freeway and has two exits for the Salt Pond/South County Hospital area. A third exit leads to RI 108 and Narragansett‘s town beach, Galilee, and Point Judith. A Wakefield exit marks the end of the freeway. Access to South County Commons comes soon. RI 138 meets from the west, and stays on in the concurrency until the exits for access to the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge and Jamestown, and the Claiborne and Newport. Route 1 then meets RI 4, a thruway leading to I-95.