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*Finalist for the National Book Award* *Finalist for the Kirkus Prize* *Instant New York Times Bestseller* *Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, New York Post, BuzzFeed, Shelf Awareness, Bustle, and Publishers Weekly* An essential read for our times: an eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in America that will deepen our understanding of the ways in which class shapes our country and “a deeply humane memoir that crackles with clarifying insight”.* Sarah Smarsh was born a fifth generation Kansas wheat farmer on her paternal side, and the product of generations of teen mothers on her maternal side. Through her experiences growing up on a farm thirty miles west of Wichita, we are gi...
An inspiring, passionate exploration of the life and work of Dolly Parton, and her deep significance for generations of working-class women "Smarsh and Parton are the perfect pairing" REFINERY 29 The world can't seem to get enough of Dolly Parton. Her image is blazoned across T-shirts, she burns on desks as novelty devotional candles, and well into her seventies she continues to grace awards stages, arenas and talk shows where women of a certain age are rarely seen. Yet not so long ago, Dolly was best known by many people as the punch line of a boob joke. So, what happened? In this affectionate, sharply insightful book, Sarah Smarsh charts Dolly's meteoric rise against the backdrop of her own working-class roots. Drawing on her own experience growing up in rural Kansas, Smarsh crafts a resonant portrait of Parton's cultural importance, above all for the women who populate her songs: struggling mothers, pregnant teenagers, diner waitresses with deadbeat boyfriends. Candid, intimate and searching, She Come By It Natural captures the enduring appeal of this singular star.
It Happened in Kansas features over 25 chapters in Kansas history. Lively and entertaining, this book brings the varied and fascinating history of the Sunflower State to life.
A refreshing new perspective on some of the most infamous reprobates of the Midwest.
Nominated for the National Book Award, chef Iliana Regan’s debut memoir chronicles her journey from foraging on her family’s Midwestern farm to running her own Michelin-starred restaurant and finding her place in the world. Iliana Regan grew up the youngest of four headstrong girls on a small farm in Indiana. While gathering raspberries as a toddler, Regan learned to only pick the ripe fruit. In the nearby fields, the orange flutes of chanterelle mushrooms beckoned her while they eluded others. Regan’s profound connection with food and the earth began in childhood, but connecting with people was more difficult. She grew up gay in an intolerant community, was an alcoholic before she tur...
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in 1990 In And Their Children After Them, the writer/photographer team Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson return to the land and families captured in James Agee and Walker Evans’s inimitable Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, extending the project of conscience and chronicling the traumatic decline of King Cotton. With this continuation of Agee and Evans’s project, Maharidge and Williamson not only uncover some surprising historical secrets relating to the families and to Agee himself, but also effectively lay to rest Agee’s fear that his work, from lack of reverence or resilience, would be but another offense to the humanity of its subjects. Williamson’s ninety-part photo essay includes updates alongside Evans’s classic originals. Maharidge and Williamson’s work in And Their Children After Them was honored with the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction when it was first published in 1990.
A comprehensive portrait of a uniquely American epidemic -- devastating in its findings and damning in its conclusions The opioid epidemic has been described as "one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine." But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers. Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs, but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it. The starting point for McGreal's de...
How a fraying social fabric is fueling the outrage of rural Americans What is fueling rural America’s outrage toward the federal government? Why did rural Americans vote overwhelmingly for Donald Trump? And is there a more nuanced explanation for the growing rural-urban divide? Drawing on more than a decade of research and hundreds of interviews, Robert Wuthnow brings us into America’s small towns, farms, and rural communities to paint a rich portrait of the moral order—the interactions, loyalties, obligations, and identities—underpinning this critical segment of the nation. Wuthnow demonstrates that to truly understand rural Americans’ anger, their culture must be explored more fully, and he shows that rural America’s fury stems less from economic concerns than from the perception that Washington is distant from and yet threatening to the social fabric of small towns. Moving beyond simplistic depictions of America’s heartland, The Left Behind offers a clearer picture of how this important population will influence the nation’s political future.
A Feeling for Rock is a visceral exploration of rock climbing as a passion and a lifestyle. Through a medley of poetry, cartoons, essays, interviews, weavings, photographs and technical tips, it conveys the experience of being bamboozled by a route, connecting with the landscape or flicking through a guidebook. In addition, the book ventures into ethical regions of gender bias and privilege and questions our relations with each other and the rock. Chapters are headed by different feelings - Love, Curiosity, Astonishment, Pain, Lust, Fear, Wonder, Companionship and so on - which lie at the core of a climbing life. A Feeling for Rock is perfect for dipping into or a more immersive read. Being full of pictures and soft to the touch, it is also rather a beautiful item to hold in your hands. "Rock climbing has shaped my body, my bookshelves, my boyfriends, my community, my employment, my home, my holidays, the clothes I wear, the vehicle I drive, how I spend my money and what happens when I die. I am a product of the rock. The dynamic is visceral, spiritual, intellectual and emotional - no area of me untouched by this curious hobby."
Violence, treachery and cruelty run through the generational veins of Rick Morton's family. A horrific accident thrusts his mother and siblings into a world impossible for them to navigate, a life of poverty and drug addiction One Hundred Years of Dirt is an unflinching memoir in which the mother is a hero who is never rewarded. It is a meditation on the anger, fear of others and an obsession with real and imagined borders. Yet it is also a testimony to the strength of familial love and endurance.