Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Maryland

A New York Times Notable Book and the March 2001 selection of Oprah's Book Club® ! Icy Sparks is the sad, funny and transcendent tale of a young girl growing up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky during the 1950’s. Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s beautifully written first novel revolves around Icy Sparks, an unforgettable heroine in the tradition of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird or Will Treed in Cold Sassy Tree. At the age of ten, Icy, a bright, curious child orphaned as a baby but raised by adoring grandparents, begins to have strange experiences. Try as she might, her "secrets"—verbal croaks, groans, and physical spasms—keep afflicting her. As an adult, she will find out she has Tourette’s Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder, but for years her behavior is the source of mystery, confusion, and deep humiliation. Narrated by a grown up Icy, the book chronicles a difficult, but ultimately hilarious and heartwarming journey, from her first spasms to her self-acceptance as a young woman. Curious about life beyond the hills, talented, and energetic, Icy learns to cut through all barriers—physical, mental, and spiritual—in order to find community and acceptance. Along her journey, Icy faces the jeers of her classmates as well as the malevolence of her often-ignorant teachers—including Mrs. Stilton, one of the most evil fourth grade teachers ever created by a writer. Called willful by her teachers and "Frog Child" by her schoolmates, she is exiled from the schoolroom and sent to a children’s asylum where it is hoped that the roots of her mysterious behavior can be discovered. Here Icy learns about difference—her own and those who are even more scarred than she. Yet, it isn’t until Icy returns home that she really begins to flower, especially through her friendship with the eccentric and obese Miss Emily, who knows first-hand how it feels to be an outcast in this tightly knit Appalachian community. Under Miss Emily’s tutelage, Icy learns about life’s struggles and rewards, survives her first comical and heartbreaking misadventure with romance, discovers the healing power of her voice when she sings, and ultimately—takes her first steps back into the world. Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s Icy Sparks is a fresh, original, and completely redeeming novel about learning to overcome others’ ignorance and celebrate the differences that make each of us unique.

Icy Sparks

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#hardcover #action #litfic #regional #kentucky #gritlit

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Kentucky

A new collection of stories by the acclaimed author of Kentucky Straight, whom Tobias Wolff has deemed one of the best writers of short fiction in his--or any--generation.

Out of the Woods

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Excellent condition. Mild wear. See photos. 

Michigan

Nothing seems to change in Eden Hill, Kentucky, and that's just fine with Virgil T. Osgood. He's been content to raise his family and run the only service station in town. But when a new station is set to open right across the road from Virgil's pumps, he suddenly faces obstacles in his career, his marriage, and his self-worth that he's never even dreamed of.Cornelius Alexander wants his new Zipco station to succeed and help establish a strong foundation for his growing family. As long as he follows the Zipco guide, he's sure to be a success--and prove his father wrong.Reverend Caudill wants to be a conduit for grace in his town, but that grace is challenged by the changes sweeping through in the early 1960s. For the sake of this small town, Virgil and Cornelius must learn to get along, but how do you love your neighbor when his very presence threatens to upend everything you hold dear?

Eden Hill

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Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Ohio

#paperback #fiction #tourettesyndrome #comingofage #illness #kentucky #orphan #womanhood 

Texas

Fern Michaels

New York

The conclusion to the saga of the Coleman and Thornton families follows Nealy Coleman Diamond as she and her daughter Emmie battle against each other while trying to train a new colt for the illustrious Kentucky Derby.

Kentucky Sunrise

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#paperback #shakers #kentucky #love #marriage #faith

The Believers

Jerry Bledsoe

1988 edition. Pages show tanning and some staining. All pages intact and none stuck together. Still a very readable book. See photos.

Virginia

A True Story of Southern Family Pride, Madness, and Multiple Murder

In this unrelenting real-life drama of three wealthy families connected by marriage and murder, Bledsoe recounts the shocking events, obsessive love, and bitter custody battles that led toward the bloody climax that took nine lives. Reissued to coincide with Bledsoe's new hardcover Blood Games (11/91).

Bitter Blood

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Illinois

#paperback #elmoreleonard #raylangivens #justified #harlan #kentucky #crimefiction

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Stories

The unrivaled master of crime's first collection of noir stories. . . . “If you thought you knew all the places Elmore Leonard could take you, think again.”--Mike Lupica

In more than 30 books spanning half a century, Elmore Leonard has captured the imagination of millions as few writers can. A literary icon praised by the New York Times Book Review as “the greatest crime writer of our time, perhaps ever, ” he has influenced many contemporary writers and is known for both the quality and accessibility of his writing.

In this first collection of short pieces, including two novella-length works, since his western anthology Tonto Woman, Leonard demonstrates the superb characterization, dead-on dialogue, vivid atmosphere, and driving plotting that have made him a household name.

When the Women Come Out to Dance

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#paperback #fiction #comingofage #illness #kentucky #orphan #tourettesyndrome #womanhood 

Images of America: Women in Lexington is a celebration of Kentucky women at work, in the home, at play, in society, and as part of the larger fabric of women's equality. Women in Lexington were active during World War II: they fought for women's rights, experienced changes within the family, and took advantage of or created new opportunities in the workplace. The 200 vintage photographs featured in this volume were drawn from collections housed in the archive of the University of Kentucky. With nearly 2 million photographs, the collections offer unparalleled coverage of the cultural, social, agricultural, and industrial changes that have shaped Lexington and Central Kentucky.

Women in Lexington

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Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

The Little Shepherd Of Kingdom Come

A Woman's Journey

Linda Sue Preston was born on a feather bed in the upper room of her Grandma Emmy's log house in the hills of eastern Kentucky. More than fifty years later, Linda Scott DeRosier has come to believe that you can take a woman out of Appalachia but you can't take Appalachia out of the woman. DeRosier's humorous and poignant memoir is the story of an educated and cultured woman who came of age in Appalachia. She remains unabashedly honest about and proud of her mountain heritage. Now a college professor, decades and notions removed from the creeks and hollows, DeRosier knows that her roots run deep in her memory and language and in her approach to the world. DeRosier describes an Appalachia of complexity and beauty rarely seen by outsiders. Hers was a close-knit world; she says she was probably eleven or twelve years old before she ever spoke to a stranger. She lovingly remembers the unscheduled, day-long visits to friends and family, when visitors cheerfully joined in the day's chores of stringing beans or bedding out sweet potatoes. No advance planning was needed for such trips. Residents of Two-Mile Creek were like family, and everyone was "delighted to see each other wherever, whenever, and for however long." Creeker is a story of relationships, the challenges and consequences of choice, and the impact of the past on the present. It also recalls one woman's struggle to make and keep a sense of self while remaining loyal to the people and traditions that sustained her along life's way. Told with wit, candor, and zest, this is Linda Scott DeRosier's answer to the question familiar in Appalachia--"Who are your people?"

Creeker

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Colorado

"A marvelous debut...has everything a big, thick novel should have, and I hated to put it down." -- John Grisham

"A page-turner." -- New York Times Book Review

For readers of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, this is a dramatic and deeply moving novel about an act of violence in a small Appalachian town and the repercussions that will forever change a young man's view of human cruelty and compassion.

After seeing the death of his younger brother in a terrible home accident, fourteen-year-old Kevin and his grieving mother are sent for the summer to live with Kevin's grandfather. In this town of Medgar, Kentucky, a peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods.

The town is beset by a massive mountaintop removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Kevin's grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the "company" and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. But when Buzzy witnesses a brutal hate crime, a sequence is set in play that will test Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.

The Secret Wisdom of the Earth (ARC)

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Wanda E. Brunstetter

3-In-1 Collection

Enjoy the bestselling Kentucky Brothers series in one jumbo volume. Titus Fisher has made many poor choices that have left him brokenhearted and jobless, but the decision to move to Kentucky has his future looking bright. Samuel Fisher, grieving widower mired by memories of yesterday, seeks a new lease on life and love in the land of tomorrow. Timothy Fisher moves his wife and daughter to Kentucky for a fresh start, but when a tragic accident occurs, their marriage seems splintered beyond repair. How will God bring hope, healing, and new beginnings?

Includes:
The Journey
The Healing
The Struggle

 

 

The Kentucky Brothers Trilogy

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Wright Thompson

Pennsylvania

A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last

The story of how Julian Van Winkle III, the caretaker of the most coveted cult Kentucky Bourbon whiskey in the world, fought to protect his family's heritage and preserve the taste of his forebears, in a world where authenticity, like his product, is in very short supply. As a journalist said of Pappy Van Winkle, "You could call it bourbon, or you could call it a $5,000 bottle of liquified, barrel-aged unobtanium." Julian Van Winkle, the third-generation head of his family's business, is now thought of as something like the Buddha of Bourbon - Booze Yoda, as Wright Thompson calls him. He is swarmed wherever he goes, and people stand in long lines to get him to sign their bottles of Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve, the whiskey he created to honor his grandfather, the founder of the family concern. A bottle of the 23-year-old Pappy starts at $3000 on the internet. As Julian is the first to say, things have gone completely nuts. Forty years ago, Julian would have laughed in astonishment if you'd told him what lay ahead. He'd just stepped in to try to save the business after his father had died, partly of heartbreak, having been forced to sell the old distillery in a brutal downturn in the market for whiskey. Julian's grandfather had presided over a magical kingdom of craft and connoisseurship, a genteel outfit whose family ethos generated good will throughout Kentucky and far beyond. There's always a certain amount of romance to the marketing of spirits, but Pappy's mission statement captured something real: "We make fine bourbon - at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always fine bourbon." But now the business had hit the wilderness years, and Julian could only hang on for dear life, stubbornly committed to preserving his namesake's legacy or going down with the ship. Then something like a miracle happened: it turned out that hundreds of very special barrels of whiskey from the Van Winkle family distillery had been saved by the multinational conglomerate that bought it. With no idea what they had, they offered to sell it to Julian, who scrambled to beg and borrow the funds. Now he could bottle a whiskey whose taste captured his family's legacy. The result would immediately be hailed as the greatest whiskey in the world - and would soon be the hardest to find. But now, those old barrels were used up, and Julian Van Winkle faced the challenge of his lifetime: how to preserve the taste of Pappy, the taste of his family's heritage, in a new age? The amazing Wright Thompson was invited to be his wingman as he set about to try. The result is an extraordinary testimony to the challenge of living up to your legacy and the rewards that come from knowing and honoring your people and your craft. Wright learned those lessons from Julian as they applied to the honest work of making a great bourbon whiskey in Kentucky, but he couldn't help applying them to his own craft, writing, and his upbringing in Mississippi, as he and his wife contemplated the birth of their first child. May we all be lucky enough to find some of ourselves, as Wright Thompson did, in Julian Van Winkle, and in Pappyland.

Pappyland

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#paperback #fiction #comingofage #kentucky #orphan 

John Calipari

Michael Sokolove

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Vermont

The Art of Coaching Extreme Talent

Kentucky’s charismatic coach shares the secrets of creating one of the premiere programs in college basketball, revealing how he transforms a group of former high school superstars into selfless, cohesive teams—including a remarkable squad last year that fell just one game short of a perfect season. Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari is highly regarded for his ability to recruit the country's top high school talent without making outlandish promises. Instead, he believes, "Commit to each other, be about each other without sacrificing your goals, and by doing this you can achieve all YOUR dreams and more." Here, for the first time, he distills his team-building methods in ways that apply to CEOs, business owners, coaches, teachers and leaders of all kinds—lessons for anyone seeking to inspire talented individuals to reach for their best selves and contribute to a greater good. A basketball team is an intimate workplace, in which blend is everything and character matters. As such, it is a window into the nature of successful leadership. Calipari views each new team like a startup business—one composed of new players, new relationships, and new challenges. Each season is a series of discoveries as he learns how to unleash the extreme talent in each of his players and mold them into championship material as college basketball comes to a crescendo every spring. While he can’t control everything, he is responsible for everything—just like a CEO. An enlightening look at leadership, management, and team building, Success Is the Only Option offers the keys to winning, on and off the court.

Success Is the Only Option

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#paperback #elmore #raylangivens #crime #usmarshall #kentucky #harlancounty

A Novel

"Wicked and irresistible....Elmore Leonard is a literary genius."

--New York Times Book Review

Before U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens began electrifying TV viewers across America (in the hit series Justified), he "starred" in Elmore Leonard's Riding the Rap--an explosive, twisty tale of a brazen Florida kidnap caper gone outrageously wrong. Chock full of wildly eccentric and deliciously criminal characters--including a psycho enforcer with a green thumb, a Bahamian bad man, and the beautiful, unabashedly greedy psychic Reverend Dawn--Riding the Rap dazzles with Leonard's trademark ingenious plot turns and razor-keen dialogue. Gripping, surprising, and unforgettable, it is a crime fiction gem that any thriller writer--from past masters John D. MacDonald, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain to the bestselling mystery auteurs of today--would be thrilled to call his own.



Riding the Rap

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There I Shall Be is Kentucky author Mark Mattmiller's second novel.

There I Shall Be

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Jesse Stuart

Robert J. Higgs

A collection of humorous stories all centered around the people in a Kentucky town after they witness auroras they mistake for the realization of the Judgment Day.

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Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks

Chris Offutt

Out of the Woods

Bill Higgs

Eden Hill

Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks

Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks

Fern Michaels

Kentucky Sunrise

Janice Holt Giles

The Believers

Jerry Bledsoe

Bitter Blood

Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks

Elmore Leonard

When the Women Come Out to Dance

Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks

Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks

Deirdre A. Scaggs

Women in Lexington

John Fox Jr.

The Little Shepherd Of Kingdom Come

Linda Scott DeRosier

Creeker

Christopher Scotton

The Secret Wisdom of the Earth (ARC)

Wanda E. Brunstetter

The Kentucky Brothers Trilogy

Wright Thompson

Pappyland

Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks

John Calipari; Michael Sokolove

Success Is the Only Option

Elmore Leonard

Riding the Rap

Mark Mattmiller; Christopher Epling (Illustrator)

There I Shall Be

Jesse Stuart; Robert J. Higgs

Foretaste of Glory

Wes Swietek

The Cemetery Road Murders