NCW Libraries

"Dividing Paradise tells the story of a rural American community whose economic growth resulted in increasing inequality and divisions between those who can and those who cannot achieve their rural visions of the American dream. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation with individuals on both sides of the divide, the book explores the contributors to and impacts of this stark inequality that has become commonplace across the United...

Overview: Since its publication by Sierra Club Books 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 development and spiritual discipline. Today's 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,...

Growing up in rural Washington as the only out gay kid means Jay is constantly bombarded with reminders that everyone around him can hook up and have relationships, but his list of love-related to-do's -- his own gay agenda -- is indefinitely, frustratingly, on hold. His parents suddenly move the family to Seattle right before his senior year, however, and the thriving LGBTQ+ community means he can finally begin checking things off his list! Will...

"In the backwoods of Ohio, Willard Russell's wife is at death's door, no matter how much he drinks, prays, or sacrifices animals at his "prayer log." Meanwhile, his son Arvin is growing up, form a kid bullied at school into a man who knows when to take action. Around them swirl a nefarious cast of characters--a demented team of serial killers, a spider-eating preacher, and a corrupt local sheriff--all braided into a riveting narrative of the grittiest...

Chipping Norton's farmer Kaleb Cooper has strong views on lots of things: sheep ('suicidal morons'), Jeremy Clarkson ('there are two types of farming, unless you count whatever it is Jeremy thinks he's doing'), goats ('they're a proper good clear-up animal, they eat everything -- no wonder they taste horrible'), New York ('if it's like London, where there are no tractors, that's no good') and more. In The World According to Kaleb, he shares his thoughts...

In a critically acclaimed memoir, a correspondent for The New York Times recounts growing up in the Alabama hill country, the son of a violent veteran and a mother who tried to insulate her children from the poverty and ignorance of life. This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills...

The residents of Letterkenny belong to one of three groups: hicks, skids, and hockey players. The three groups are constantly feuding with each other over seemingly trivial matters, often ending with someone getting their ass kicked. Contains season 5.

In Lydia Kiesling's razor-sharp debut novel, The Golden State, we accompany Daphne, a young mother on the edge of a breakdown, as she flees her sensible but strained life in San Francisco for the high desert of Altavista with her toddler, Honey. Bucking under the weight of being a single parent--her Turkish husband is unable to return to the United States because of a "processing error"--Daphne takes refuge in a mobile home left to her by her grandparents...

The characters from the popular TV series return to save the town of Hooterville from greedy developers, who are trying to force the folks to sell their land.

Oliver Douglas is a well read lawyer who has had enough of the hustle and bustle of New York, so he pulls up stakes to settle down in a more pastoral setting, much to the dismay of his glamorous wife Lisa, who's more accustomed to life in The Big Apple than on a small farm.