Hugh Collins, a restless socio-anthropologist whose researches had taken him to many strange places, decided that the time had come to settle down in the northwest of Scotland, in the country he had known and loved as a boy. One night, on board ship off the African coast, a man died a very peculiar death. This death was unexplained then, and might have remained so, had his young cousin Bill never met the Minister's daughter. But this meeting, although it almost cost Bill his life, led to the discovery of many strange things in a community held silent by fear and superstition. In this book, the dramatic power of the story is tremendously heightened by the contrasting tranquillity and beauty of the Scottish scene, of which Alistair Mair writes with his customary skill and affection.

Quinn’s mission is to steal a woman from a clan and escort her to his brother, Cormac, the chief of their clan, so he can marry her. But Quinn’s brother has tried to have him murdered before, and Quinn suspects Cormac is hoping the woman’s clan kills him this time, if the mercenaries they sent with him don’t do the deed first. Avelina’s cousin warns her that the storm sank a ship and a warrior lays on the shore, badly injured, but armed. Armed with a sword of her own and with her wolf companion, Avelina finds Quinn and rescues him from the incoming tide, but now she must hide him from her kin before they learn he planned to steal her cousin away. If he survives his injuries and her kin, he must deal with his traitorous brother before it is too late.

Celebrate the weird, wonderful, and the downright bizarre in this compelling compendium of unusual animals. From the green fur of a three-toed sloth, to the pink and wiggly appendage of the star-nosed mole, there’s something new to marvel at on every page. Delve into the forests, burrow under the ground, and dive into the deep to discover nature's most peculiar creatures and learn about their behavior, diet, and habitat, as well as folk beliefs about each animal. Hidden away in Earth’s forests, caves, and oceans, these creatures might look or behave in peculiar ways but, as you will soon find out, every oddity serves a purpose: the long, skeletal finger of an aye-aye, used by this lemur to tap on trees to locate hollow tunnels where delicious insects hide the barrel-shaped eyes of a Pacific barreleye fish that turn upward to watch for prey above through its transparent head the big, bulbous nose of a proboscis monkey designed to attract mates the armor-like scales of a pangolin that are so tough that even lions and tigers can’t bite through them Come face-to-face with the most curious creatures from across the globe, and decide for yourself who’s the weirdest of them all.

Do, Die, or Get Along weaves together voices of twenty-six people who have intimate connections to two neighboring towns in the southwestern Virginia coal country. Filled with evidence of a new kind of local outlook on the widespread challenge of small community survival, the book tells how a confrontational "do-or-die" past has given way to a "get-along" present built on coalition and guarded hope. St. Paul and Dante are six miles apart; measured in other ways, the distance can be greater. Dante, for decades a company town controlled at all levels by the mine owners, has only a recent history of civic initiative. In St. Paul, which arose at a railroad junction, public debate, entrepreneurship, and education found a more receptive home. The speakers are men and women, wealthy and poor, black and white, old-timers and newcomers. Their concerns and interests range widely, including the battle over strip mining, efforts to control flooding, the 1989-90 Pittston strike, the nationally acclaimed Wetlands Estonoa Project, and the grassroots revitalization of both towns led by the St. Paul Tomorrow and Dante Lives On organizations. Their talk of the past often invokes an ethos, rooted in the hand-to-mouth pioneer era, of short-term gain. Just as frequently, however, talk turns to more recent times, when community leaders, corporations, unions, the federal government, and environmental groups have begun to seek accord based on what will be best, in the long run, for the towns. The story of Dante and St. Paul, Crow writes, "gives twenty-first-century meaning to the idea of the good fight." This is an absorbing account of persistence, resourcefulness, and eclectic redefinition of success and community revival, with ramifications well beyond Appalachia.