Hillbilly Elegy recounts J.D. Vance's powerful origin story...From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2024 election, an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class.THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"You will not read a more important book about America this year."—The Economist"A riveting book."—The Wall Street Journal"Essential reading."—David Brooks, New York TimesHillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country. Read more

A compelling blend of true crime and memoir tracing the author’s investigation into the kidnapping and murder of her great-grandfather in 1980s Louisiana and the reverberations on her family and community throughout the decades""Riveting and atmospheric, Home of the Happy is also a heartfelt grappling with a trauma in the author’s family and her attempts to unravel its secrets once and for all. LaHaye Fontenot’s writing is urgent, fueled not just by a desire for justice but by love for her ancestors and the Cajun community of south Louisiana. A must-read for true crime and mystery fans.""— Ana Reyes, New York Times bestselling author of The House in the PinesOn January 16, 1983, Aubrey LaHaye’s body was found floating in the Bayou Nezpique. His kidnapping ten days before sparked “the biggest manhunt in the history of Evangeline Parish.” But his descendants would hear the story as lore, in whispers of the dreadful day the FBI landed a helicopter in the family’s front lawn and set out on horseback to search for the seventy-year-old banker.Decades later, Aubrey’s great-granddaughter Jordan LaHaye Fontenot asked her father, the parish urologist, to tell the full story. He revealed that to this day, every few months, one of his patients will bring up his grandfather’s murder, and the man accused of killing him, John Brady Balfa, who remains at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola serving a life sentence. They’ll say, in so many words: “Dr. Marcel, I really don’t think that Balfa boy killed your granddaddy.”For listeners of Maggie Nelson’s The Red Parts and Emma Copley Eisenberg's The Third Rainbow Girl, Home of the Happy unravels the layers of suffering borne of this brutal crime—and investigates the mysteries that linger beneath generations of silence. Is it possible that an innocent man languishes in prison, still, wrongly convicted of murdering the author’s great-grandfather?Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

Considered by the World Health Organization to be the most widely-used health care manual in the world, Where There Is No Doctor provides easy-to-understand information on how to identify, treat, and prevent many common health issues. Inside you'll find information on:examining and caring for sick people – how to check breathing, pulse, and temperature; identifying diseases based on fever patterns, watching for signs of dangerous illnesses, and when to go for medical helpidentifying and treating illnesses – recognizing common sicknesses including dehydration, cold and flu, asthma, allergic reactions, arthritis, and back pain, as well as serious illnesses like malaria, tuberculosis, tetanus, dengue, and typhoid feversanitation and disease prevention – promoting good hygiene, step-by-step instructions to build a basic latrine, and prevention and treatment of intestinal parasites and wormsfirst aid and wilderness medicine – how to treat minor injuries like small and large cuts and minor burns, and more serious injuries and conditions like drowning, broken bones, bullet or knife wounds, snakebites, and shockpregnancy and sexual health – staying healthy during pregnancy, preparing for birth, and delivering a baby; birth control methods; identifying, treating, and preventing sexually transmitted infections like HIV and syphilismedicines and home remedies – how and when to use medicines, how to tell if a home remedy is helpful or harmful, and an easy-to-reference index of medicines with uses, dosages, and precautions Heavily illustrated and written in plain language, this handbook emphasizes addressing the underlying causes of poor health and focuses on cleanliness, healthy diet, vaccinations, and appropriate, cautious use of medicines. Useful for health workers, educators, and others involved in primary care and health promotion, Where There Is No Doctor has been translated into over 75 languages around the world. This practical and trusted guide helps readers protect and care for their own health and that of their families and communities.The latest reprint (May 2023, 19th printing) includes updated information on how and when to use medicines, alcohol and drug misuse, treating sexually transmitted infections, identifying and treating serious illnesses like tuberculosis and leprosy, and pregnancy and birth.About Hesperian Health Guides: Hesperian partners with health workers, community members, medical professionals, and others around the world to develop, publish, and share accurate health information. To help all people take greater control over their health, Hesperian’s books are written using plain, easy-to-understand language, feature plentiful illustrations and are regularly updated with the latest medical information. Read more

A Hulu limited series inspired by the New York Times bestselling book by Beth Macy.Journalist Beth Macy's definitive account of America's opioid epidemic "masterfully interlaces stories of communities in crisis with dark histories of corporate greed and regulatory indifference" (New York Times)—from the boardroom to the courtroom and into the living rooms of Americans.In this extraordinary work, Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of a national drama that has unfolded over two decades. From the labs and marketing departments of big pharma to local doctor's offices; wealthy suburbs to distressed small communities in Central Appalachia; from distant cities to once-idyllic farm towns; the spread of opioid addiction follows a tortuous trajectory that illustrates how this crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched.Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, Macy sets out to answer a grieving mother's question—why her only son died—and comes away with a gripping, binge-worthy story of greed and need. From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, Macy investigates the powerful forces that led America's doctors and patients to embrace a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm. In some of the same communities featured in her best-selling book Factory Man, the unemployed use painkillers both to numb the pain of joblessness and pay their bills, while privileged teens trade pills in cul-de-sacs, and even high school standouts fall prey to prostitution, jail, and death.Through unsparing, compelling, and unforgettably humane portraits of families and first responders determined to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus. In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows that one thing uniting Americans across geographic, partisan, and class lines is opioid drug abuse. But even in the midst of twin crises in drug abuse and healthcare, Macy finds reason to hope and ample signs of the spirit and tenacity that are helping the countless ordinary people ensnared by addiction build a better future for themselves, their families, and their communities."An impressive feat of journalism, monumental in scope and urgent in its implications."—Jennifer Latson, The Boston GlobePLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

A dazzling piece of narrative nonfiction about land lust and the American West, The Crazies tells the story of a wind farm that triggers a 21st century range war between a struggling fifth-generation rancher and the billionaires next door.Most locals in Big Timber, Montana learn to live with the wind. Rick Jarrett sought his fortune in it. Like his pioneer ancestors who staked their claims in the Treasure State, he believed in his right to make a living off the land—and its newest precious resource, million-dollar wind.Trouble was, Jarrett’s neighbors were some of the wealthiest and most influential men in America, trophy ranchers who’d come West to enjoy magnificent mountain views, not stare at 500-foot wind turbines.And so began an epic showdown that would pull in an ever-widening cast of larger-than-life characters, including a Texas oil and gas tycoon, a roguish wind prospector, a Crow activist fighting for his tribe’s rights to the mountains they hold sacred, and an Olympic athlete-turned-attorney whose path to redemption would lead to Jarrett’s wind farm. A wildly entertaining yarn, the brawl over Crazy Mountain Wind would become a fight over the values that define us as Americans—and a window into how this country actually works. All the while, the most coveted rangeland in the West was being threatened by forces more powerful than anything one man could muster: dwindling snowpack, record drought, raging wildfires.The Crazies is a Western for a warming planet, full of cowboys and billionaires and billionaire cowboys. But it’s also so much more. It’s an exquisitely reported, ruggedly beautiful elegy for a vanishing way of life and a bighearted inquiry into how you can love a place so much you risk destroying it. Read more

After rising from poverty to earn two Ivy League degrees, an Appalachian lawyer pays tribute to the strong "hill women" who raised and inspired her, and whose values have the potential to rejuvenate a struggling region."Destined to be compared to Hillbilly Elegy and Educated." (BookPage starred review)"Poverty is enmeshed with pride in these stories of survival." (Associated Press)Nestled in the Appalachian mountains, Owsley County is one of the poorest counties in both Kentucky and the country. Buildings are crumbling and fields sit vacant, as tobacco farming and coal mining decline. But strong women are finding creative ways to subsist in their hollers in the hills.Cassie Chambers grew up in these hollers, and through the women who raised her, she traces her own path out of and back into the Kentucky mountains. Chambers' granny was a child bride who rose before dawn every morning to raise seven children. Despite her poverty, she wouldn’t hesitate to give the last bite of pie or vegetables from her garden to a struggling neighbor. Her two daughters took very different paths: strong-willed Ruth - the hardest-working tobacco farmer in the county - stayed on the family farm, while spirited Wilma - the sixth child - became the first in the family to graduate from high school, then moved an hour away for college. Married at 19 and pregnant with Cassie a few months later, Wilma beat the odds to finish school. She raised her daughter to think she could move mountains, like the ones that kept her safe but also isolated her from the larger world.Cassie would spend much of her childhood with Granny and Ruth in the hills of Owsley County, both while Wilma was in college and after. With her "hill women" values guiding her, Cassie went on to graduate from Harvard Law. But while the Ivy League gave her knowledge and opportunities, its privileged world felt far from her reality, and she moved back home to help her fellow rural Kentucky women by providing free legal services.Appalachian women face issues that are all too common: domestic violence, the opioid crisis, a world that seems more divided by the day. But they are also community leaders, keeping their towns together in the face of a system that continually fails them. With nuance and heart, Chambers uses these women’s stories paired with her own journey to break down the myth of the hillbilly and illuminate a region whose poor communities, especially women, can lead it into the future. Read more

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing portrait and damning takedown of America’s proudest citizens—who are also the least likely to defend its core principles“This is an important book that ought to be read by anyone who wants to understand politics in the perilous Age of Trump.”—David Corn, New York Times bestselling author of American PsychosisWhite rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States, yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they’re right. In White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. Their rage—stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media—now poses an existential threat to the United States.Schaller and Waldman show how vulnerable U.S. democracy has become to rural Whites who, despite legitimate grievances, are increasingly inclined to hold racist and xenophobic beliefs, to believe in conspiracy theories, to accept violence as a legitimate course of political action, and to exhibit antidemocratic tendencies. Rural White Americans’ attitude might best be described as “I love my country, but not our country,” Schaller and Waldman argue. This phenomenon is the patriot paradox of rural America: The citizens who take such pride in their patriotism are also the least likely to defend core American principles. And by stoking rural Whites’ anger rather than addressing the hard problems they face, conservative politicians and talking heads create a feedback loop of resentments that are undermining American democracy.Schaller and Waldman provocatively critique both the structures that permit rural Whites’ disproportionate influence over American governance and the prospects for creating a pluralist, inclusive democracy that delivers policy solutions that benefit rural communities. They conclude with a political reimagining that offers a better future for both rural people and the rest of America. Read more

In her first book since the widely acclaimed Strangers in Their Own Land, National Book Award finalist and best-selling author Arlie Russell Hochschild now ventures to Appalachia, uncovering the "pride paradox" that has given the right's appeals such resonance.For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"?Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation, where the city was reeling: coal jobs had left, crushing poverty persisted, and a deadly drug crisis struck the region. Although Pikeville was in the political center thirty years ago, by 2016, 80 percent of the district's population voted for Donald Trump. Her brilliant exploration of the town's response to a white nationalist march in 2017—a rehearsal for the deadly Unite the Right march that would soon take place in Charlottesville, Virginia—takes us deep inside a torn and suffering community.Hochschild focuses on a group swept up in the shifting political landscape: blue-collar men. In small churches, hillside hollers, roadside diners, trailer parks, and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, Hochschild introduces us to unforgettable people, and offers an original lens through which to see them and the wider world. In Stolen Pride, Hochschild incisively explores our dangerous times, even as she also points a way forward. Read more

A journey through both family history and the fascinating and quintessentially American history of New England’s Merrimack Valley, its farmers, and the immigrant workers caught up in the industrial textile age. After years of living away, Jane Brox made the decision to return to the family farm of her birth, where her aging father still tended the crops. Brox twines two narratives, personal and historic, as she captures the cadences of farm life and those who sustain it, at a time when the viability of both are waning. Amid the turmoil after her father’s death, Brox begins a search for her family’s story. As Brox explores, she also reflects on the place of the family farm as it evolved from the Pilgrims’ brutal progress at Plymouth to the modern world, where much of our food is produced by industrial agriculture while the family farm is both marginalized and romanticized. In the Merrimack Valley brings together for the first time in one volume Brox’s timeless trilogy: Here and Nowhere Else (winner of the L.L. Winship/PEN/New England Award); Five Thousand Days Like This One (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award); and Clearing Land (named a Best Book of the Year by the Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution). In considering the place of the family farm today, Brox traces the transformation of the idea of wilderness—and its intricate connection to cultivation—which changed as our ties to the land loosened. Exploring these strands, Brox arrives at something beyond a biography of a farm: a vivid depiction of the half-life it carries in our collective imagination. This Nonpareil edition includes a new introduction by Suzanne Berne, and new afterword by the author. Read more

“Outstanding memoir . . . as well as closely observed, poignant, and wistful."—C. J. Box, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Three-Inch TeethA captivating, unfiltered account of growing up on a ranch, where every decision defines characterA Sometimes Paradise is a moving personal journey into the rugged beauty and hardscrabble challenges of Wyoming ranch life that shaped Mark Miller as a boy and then as a young man.Against the backdrop of deadly ice storms and punishing droughts in a harsh, unforgiving environment, Mark shares stories of adventures, misadventures, and invaluable lessons he learned along the way. As he adapted to the rugged Wyoming terrain, he forged an unbreakable connection with the land and animals—and discovered the true power of family and friendship.An eloquent account of self-discovery, A Sometimes Paradise paints a vivid portrait of resilience and a steadfast commitment to a vanishing way of life. More than a memoir, it is a testament to the enduring spirit of the American West and the people who call it home."Magic, understanding, and truth lie within these pages. . . . A Sometimes Paradise is a masterwork.”—W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear, New York Times bestselling authors Read more

"Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and told with the air of suspense that few writers can handle, Wastelands is a story I wish I had written."—From the Foreword by John GrishamThe once idyllic coastal plain of North Carolina is home to a close-knit, rural community that for more than a generation has battled the polluting practices of large-scale farming taking place in its own backyard. After years of frustration and futility, an impassioned cadre of local residents, led by a team of intrepid and dedicated lawyers, filed a lawsuit against one of the world’s most powerful companies—and, miraculously, they won.As vivid and fast-paced as a thriller, Wastelands takes us into the heart of a legal battle over the future of America’s farmland and into the lives of the people who found the courage to fight.There is Elsie Herring, the most outspoken of the neighbors, who has endured racial slurs and the threat of a restraining order to tell the story of the waste raining down on her rooftop from the hog operation next door. There is Don Webb, a larger-than-life hog farmer turned grassroots crusader, and Rick Dove, a riverkeeper and erstwhile military judge who has pioneered the use of aerial photography to document the scale of the pollution. There is Woodell McGowan, a quiet man whose quest to redeem his family’s ancestral land encourages him to become a better neighbor, and Dr. Steve Wing, a groundbreaking epidemiologist whose work on the health effects of hog waste exposure translates the neighbors’ stories into the argot of science. And there is Tom Butler, an environmental savant and hog industry insider whose whistleblowing testimony electrifies the jury.Fighting alongside them in the courtroom is Mona Lisa Wallace, who broke the gender barrier in her small southern town and built a storied legal career out of vanquishing corporate giants, and Mike Kaeske, whose trial skills are second to none.With journalistic rigor and a novelist’s instinct for story, Corban Addison's Wastelands captures the inspiring struggle to bring a modern-day monopoly to its knees, to force a once-invincible corporation to change, and to preserve the rights—and restore the heritage—of a long-suffering community. Read more

First published in 1972, The Foxfire Book was a surprise bestseller that brought Appalachia's philosophy of simple living to hundreds of thousands of readers. Whether you wanted to hunt game, bake the old-fashioned way, or learn the art of successful moonshining, The Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center had a contact who could teach you how with clear, step-by-step instructions.Volume three of this series covers animal care, banjos and dulcimers, wild plant foods, butter churns, ginseng and more. Read more

“The best all-around study of the American cowboy ever written. Every page crackles with keen analysis and vivid prose about the Old West. A must-read!” — Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America The open-range cattle era lasted barely a quarter century, but it left America irrevocably changed. Cattle Kingdom reveals how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today. The tale takes us from dust-choked cattle drives to the unlikely splendors of boomtowns like Abilene, Kansas, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. We meet a diverse cast, from cowboy Teddy Blue to failed rancher and future president Teddy Roosevelt. This is a revolutionary new appraisal of the Old West and the America it made. “Knowlton writes well about all the fun stuff: trail drives, rambunctious cow towns, gunfights and range wars . . . [He] enlists all of these tropes in support of an intriguing thesis: that the romance of the Old West arose upon the swelling surface of a giant economic bubble . . . Cattle Kingdom is The Great Plains by way of The Big Short.” — Wall Street Journal “Knowlton deftly balances close-ups and bird’s-eye views. We learn countless details . . . More important, we learn why the story played out as it did.” — New York Times Book Review “The best one-volume history of the legendary era of the cowboy and cattle empires in thirty years.” — True West Read more

This one volume edition of Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life brings these classics on rural homesteading together. This couple abandoned the city for a rural life with minimal cash and the knowledge of self reliance and good health. Read more

Winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama“Funny, heartbreaking, sly and unblinking…The Flick may be the best argument anyone has yet made for the continued necessity and profound uniqueness of theater.” —Jesse Green, New York“Hilarious and ineffably touching…Ms. Baker’s peerless aptitude for exploring how people grope their way toward a sense of equanimity, even as they learn to accept disappointment, is among the things that make her such a gifted writer…This lovingly observed play will sink deep into your consciousness.” —Charles Isherwood, New York Times“This hypnotic, heartbreaking micro-epic about movies and moving on is irreducibly theatrical.” —David Cote, TimeOut New YorkIn a rundown movie theater in central Massachusetts, three underpaid employees sweep up popcorn in the empty aisles and tend to one of the last thirty-five-millimeter projectors in the state. With keen insight and a ceaseless attention to detail, The Flick pays tribute to the power of movies and paints a heartbreaking portrait of three characters and their working lives. A critical hit when it premiered Off-Broadway, this comedy, by one of the country’s most produced and highly regarded young playwrights, was awarded the coveted 2013 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, an Obie Award for Playwriting and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.ANNIE BAKER’S works include The Aliens (Obie Award), Body Awareness, Circle Mirror Transformation (Obie Award), Nocturama, and an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Her work has been produced at more than a hundred theaters in the U.S. and in more than a dozen countries. Recent honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Steinberg Playwright Award and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award. She is a resident playwright at Signature Theatre. Read more

An NPR Best Book of the YearThe hilarious, charming, and candid story of writer Christopher Ingraham’s decision to uproot his life and move his family to Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, population 1,400—the community he made famous as “the worst place to live in America” in a story he wrote for the Washington Post.Like so many young American couples, Chris Ingraham and his wife Briana were having a difficult time making ends meet as they tried to raise their twin boys in the East Coast suburbs.  One day, Chris – in his role as a “data guy” reporter at the Washington Post – stumbled on a study that would change his life.  It was a ranking of America’s 3,000+ counties from ugliest to most scenic. He quickly scrolled to the bottom of the list and gleefully wrote the words “The absolute worst place to live in America is (drumroll please) … Red Lake County, Minn.” The story went viral, to put it mildly.  Among the reactions were many from residents of Red Lake County.  While they were unflappably polite – it’s not called “Minnesota Nice” for nothing – they challenged him to look beyond the spreadsheet and actually visit their community. Ingraham, with slight trepidation, accepted.   Impressed by the locals’ warmth, humor and hospitality – and ever more aware of his financial situation and torturous commute – Chris and Briana eventually decided to relocate to the town he’d just dragged through the dirt on the Internet.If You Lived Here You’d Be Home by Now is the story of making a decision that turns all your preconceptions – good and bad -- on their heads.  In Red Lake County, Ingraham experiences the intensity and power of small-town gossip, struggles to find a decent cup of coffee, suffers through winters with temperatures dropping to forty below zero, and unearths some truths about small-town life that the coastal media usually miss. It’s a wry and charming tale – with data! -- of what happened to one family brave enough to move waaaay beyond its comfort zone Read more

This “irresistibly absorbing” true crime investigation uncovers the brutal murder of two Dartmouth professors by a pair of students in 2001 (Publishers Weekly).On a cold night in January 2001, the idyllic community of Dartmouth College was shattered by the discovery that Half and Susanne Zantop, two of its most beloved professors, had been hacked to death in their own home. Investigators searched helplessly for clues linking the victims to their murderers. Weeks later, in the nearby town of Chelsea, Vermont, they sought out a pair of high school seniors for questioning. Then Robert Tulloch and his best friend, Jim Parker, fled. Suddenly, two of Chelsea’s brightest and most popular sons had become fugitives, wanted for the murders of Half and Susanne Zantop.Authors Mitchell Zuckoff and Dick Lehr provide a vivid explication of a murder that captivated the nation, as well as dramatic revelations about the forces that turned two popular teenagers into killers. Judgement Ridge conveys the devastating loss of Half and Susanne Zantop, while also providing a clear portrait of the killers, their families, and their community—and, perhaps, a warning to any parent about what evil may lurk in the hearts of boys. Read more

Seamus O'Rourke's humorous memoir, capturing the slow-paced, absurd lives of rural Ireland in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.When actor, playwright and comedian Seamus O’Rourke first published Standing in Gaps in 2020 it found a wide audience amongst readers in rural Ireland. With a distinct talent for seeing the absurd in the ordinary, mundane lives of people who ‘had nothing better to be at’ and making it hilarious, Standing in Gaps manages to turn back time and transport the reader to a place where everything moved slowly - and in the Leitrim of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, that means really slowly.In this memoir about family, people and time, O’Rourke finds diamond-tipped-needles in bales of really bad hay, providing laughter and stories of mayhem for his many fans. Read more

First published in 1972, The Foxfire Book was a surprise bestseller that brought Appalachia's philosophy of simple living to hundreds of thousands of readers. Whether you wanted to hunt game, bake the old-fashioned way, or learn the art of successful moonshining, The Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center had a contact who could teach you how with clear, step-by-step instructions.The seventh Foxfire volume explores the traditions of mountain religious heritage--including ministers, revivals, baptisms,  gospel-singing, faith healing, camp meetings, snake handling--and more. Read more

Everyone who has ever dreamed of getting back to the soil will derive from Maurice Grenville Kains' practical and easy-to-understand discussions a more complete view of what small-scale farming means. Countless readers of Five Acres and Independence have come away with specific projects to begin and moved closer to the fulfillment of their dreams of independence on a small farm.Whether you already own a suitable place or are still looking, Five Acres and Independence will help you learn to evaluate land for both its total economic and its specific agricultural possibilities. There are methods of calculating costs of permanent improvements — draining the land, improving soil, planting wind breaks, putting in septic tanks, cellars, irrigation systems, greenhouses, etc. — and methods of carrying out those improvements. There are suggestions for specific crops — strawberries, grapes, vegetables, orchards, spring, summer, and fall crops, transplanting, timing, repairing what already exists — with methods of deciding what is best for your land and purposes and techniques for making each of them pay. There are suggestions for animals for the small-scale farmer — goats, chickens, bees — and means of working them into your overall farm design. And there are suggestions for keeping your small farm in top production condition, methods of continually increasing the value of your farm, methods of marketing your produce and of accurately investing in improvements — virtually everything a small-scale farmer needs to know to make his venture economically sound.Some things, of course, have changed since 1940 when M. G. Kains revised Five Acres and Independence. But the basic down-to-earth advice of one of the most prominent men in American agriculture and the methods of farming the small-scale, pre-DDT farm are still essentially the same. Much of the information in this book was built on USDA and state farm bureau reports; almost all of it was personally tested by M. G. Kains, either on his own farms or on farms of the people who trusted him as an experienced consultant. His book went through more than 30 editions in the first 10 years after its original publication. It has helped countless small farmers attain their dreams, and it continues today as an exceptional resource for those who want to make their first farming attempt. Read more