Akron Public Library

The year is 2008 and Samantha Kofer's career at a huge Wall Street law firm is on the fast track -- until the recession hits and she gets downsized, furloughed, escorted out of the building. Samantha, though, is one of the "lucky" associates. She's offered an opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic for one year without pay, after which there would be a slim chance that she'd get her old job back. In a matter of days Samantha moves from Manhattan...

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....

"As they do each June, the Foxes have driven the winding roads of Appalachia to drop off their children for a two-week stay at their grandmother's. Here, twelve-year-old Thea can run free and breathe in the smells of pine and fresh bread and Grammie's handmade candles. But as her parents head back to suburban Virginia, they have no idea they're about to cross paths with a ticking time bomb. Back in Kentucky, Thea and her grandmother Lucy both awaken...

"In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good. Picking up her mother's old packhorse library...

Randall Stargill's imminent death stirs up the living and the dead, with a real estate developer poised to snap up the Stargill's Appalachian farm, Randall's four sons trying to deal with each other and the demands left by their dying father, and an old sweetheart hoping to lay a long-held secret to rest.

"Part memoir, part historical and social analysis, J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy is a fascinating consideration of class, culture, and the American dream. Vance's grandparents were "dirt poor and in love." They got married and moved north from Kentucky to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. Their grandchild (the author) graduated from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving upward mobility for...

After their father's death, two children and their invalid mother head south to the rugged mountains of southwestern Virginia to live with their great-grandmother. They flourish until the local coal-and gas company comes around conniving to seize their property.

Seen through the eyes of the youngest daughter, Annie, the Richards family faces triumph and hardships during the Great Depression and World War II.

It's the true American story of a legendary family feud, one that spanned decades and nearly launched a war between Kentucky and West Virginia. It chronicles a clash of clans that inspired passion, vengeance, courage, sacrifice, crimes and accusations, while forever transforming the two families and the region where they lived.

The frontier has brought Hawk Spencer and Elizabeth MacNeal together. Captivated by the promise of rich land beyond the Appalachian Mountains, they discover that faith alone can carry them through the harshest of times.