To the Chandler family in 1950's Black Oak, Arkansas, the cotton season means hard work, an influx of temporary workers -- and a host of complications. Hank Spruill, one of the hired hands has a violent temper that has gotten him into trouble with the law. Tally, his sister, is smitten with Cowboy, a Mexican laborer Hank despises. And with all the turmoil, 7-year-old Luke Chandler has seen a lot more than most kids his age.

The teenage son of an Appalachian single mother who dies when he is eleven uses his good looks, wit, and instincts to survive foster care, child labor, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival....

A sharp and funny addition to Daniel Woodrell's collection of "country noir" novels, featuring anti-hero Sammy Barlach and Jamalee Merridew, her hair tomato red with rage and ambition. In the Ozarks, what you are is where you are born. If you're born in Venus Holler, you're not much. For Jamalee Merridew, Venus Holler just won't cut it. Jamalee sees her brother Jason, blessed with drop-dead gorgeous looks and the local object of female obsession,...

"Since its publication in 1977, The Unsettling of America has been recognized as a classic of American letters. In it, Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural and spiritual discipline. Todays agribusiness, however, takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families. As a result, we as a nation are more estranged from the land -- from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it. Sadly, his arguments and observations are...

Set during the Depression in the depleted farmlands surrounding Augusta, Georgia, Tobacco Road is the story of the Lesters, a family of white sharecroppers so destitute that most of their creditors have given up on them. Debased by poverty to an elemental state of ignorance and selfishness, the Lesters are preoccupied by their hunger, sexual longings, and fear that they will one day descend to a lower rung on the social ladder than the black families...

An inspiring and eye-opening memoir showing how Democrats can reconnect with rural and red state voters from Montana's three-term Democratic senator.

The Blakely family, despite the tragedy that separated them, must band together to save their historical plantation, which has been in the family for generations and is the only thing that holds them all together, from being sold to developers.

Resisting romantic commitments while enjoying a life of boating, swimming, and barbecues, Travis Parker is unable to deny his attraction to new neighbor Gabby Holland, a defensive woman whose long-time boyfriend further challenges Travis' growing feelings.

The former president offers an account of growing up on a Georgia farm during the Depression and provides profiles of the people who shaped his life.