A found-audio collage memoir recounting the personal history of Swizzlefish, Rolf’s grunge-bandwagon band, and the Pacific Northwest Christian college that made it stand apart from similar zeitgeist rock acts.

This book collects Rolf’s boldest, funniest, and most revealing journeys from his first 10 years as a travel writer — from crashing the set of a Leonardo DiCaprio movie in Thailand to learning the secrets of Tantric sex in a dubious Indian ashram. Each chapter contains a “commentary track” — humorous endnotes that reveal the ragged edges behind the experience and creation of each tale. Offbeat and insightful, this book is an engrossing read for students of travel writing as well as armchair wanderers.

Rolf and illustrator Cedar Van Tassel recreate the comic tale of Wenamun, an ancient Egyptian priest whose overseas voyage in search of Lebanese timber resulted in an ongoing series of fiascos. Based on a source papyrus that was lost to history until the late 19th century, the protagonist’s misadventure is delightfully entertaining, and has a…

Charting the rise of the Geto Boys from the earliest days of Houston’s rap scene, Rolf Potts documents a moment in music history when hip-hop was beginning to replace rock as the transgressive sound of American youth. In creating an album that was both sonically innovative and unprecedentedly vulgar, the Geto Boys were accomplishing something that went beyond music. To paraphrase a sentiment from Don DeLillo, this group of young men from Houston’s Fifth Ward ghetto had figured out the “language of being noticed” — which is, in the end, the only language America understands.

Note: An audiobook version of this title is available in English. When Emanuel Haldeman-Julius drowned in his garden swimming pool on July 31, 1951, he was seen as a finished man. Accused of communism by the American press, he had just lost a trial for tax evasion and faced prison. A strange ending for a…

9 key lessons from a deep-dive into Rolf’s failed 1995 van-life memoir, which predated — and set the stage for — his eventual bestselling debut book, Vagabonding.

How one nearly forgotten 1920s publisher’s “little blue books” created an inexpensive mail-order information superhighway that paved the way for the sexual revolution, influenced the feminist and civil rights movements, and foreshadowed the age of information.

Rolf wrote the introduction to Travelers’ Tales’ annual anthology of the best travel stories from around the world. Contributors include Don George, Marcia DeSanctis, Thomas Swick, Jill Robinson, Erin Byrne, Kimberley Lovato, Christina Ammon, and Peter Wortsman.

By Patrick Leigh Fermor

Rolf penned the Foreword to this anthology of writing from every stage of Leigh Fermor’s life. Written in a singular, elegant style, Leigh Fermor’s tales have inspired generations of writers and continue to shape the language of travel.

Author: Kate Harris
Rolf conducted the “Reader’s Guide” Q&A for Kate Harris’s book, touching on Marco Polo as muse vs. dusty interloper, the spiritual and intuitive gifts of travel, and the joys of homecoming.

Rolf wrote the Foreword to this book, which guides readers through the pop-culture sensation that was professional indoor soccer in the 1980s.