The pieces in this collection form a lament for a way of life mostly gone. "The family farm is dead. Did you know?" says one character within. "E.B. White writes Charlotte's Web today, it takes place in a hog confinement. Imagine Wilbur living in a concentration camp for pigs." Still, these pieces are neither nostalgic nor sentimental. Boys bear burdens heavier than is just--they discover truths at too early an age. Woven through-out is the strong, unspoken love between fathers and sons, sons and fathers. But perhaps these pieces, this Possum Trot, form not a lament, but a celebration of life. There is laughter here, the laughter that comes after the funeral, when the family is gathered in the home, the casseroles have been eaten and the boys are playing catch in their church clothes. The men have taken off their jackets and rolled their sleeves, and the women are pouring coffee. "Do you remember when...?" someone says. They do remember, and they laugh. There are tears in their eyes because one of the family is missing. But those tears are mixed with tears of laughter, because look around you. Here we all are. Still here. Alive and kicking.

On one memorable day, while Bishop Martin and his wife, Donna, were in prayer together, God gave them a one-word message: "Adopt!" Over the next five years, the Martins would adopt four kids. Others in their church community have heard the call and have now adopted 72 children.

Slaughtered along our highways, roadkill may be observed regularly, but aren't likely to be given much thought. Research scientists, animal rights activists, roadkill artists, writers, ethicists and lyricists, however, are increasingly sounding the alarm. They report that we are killing the very animals we love, and are driving many of them to the brink of extinction. Detailing the death and destruction of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insect pollinators, this study examines the ways in which we are thus jeopardizing our own futures. Beginning in the Model T era, biologists counted the common carnage of the time--cottontails, woodchucks, and squirrels, mostly. That record-keeping continues today. Beyond the bleak statistics, zoologists are rerouting migratory paths of animals and are advocating for cat and dog companions. This book illuminates both our successes and failures in keeping animals out of harm's way and what those efforts reflect about ourselves and our capacity to care enough to alter the road ahead.

In this hustle and bustle world, many find it hard to sit down and read a complete novel, or even read it is parts. These short stories and poems can be read a few each day or at your convenience. We've even thrown in a few of the best email forwards that you will love reading again. You'll laugh at Rudy the Gobbler during Thanksgiving then the conversation Santa has with the reindeer in Santa's Last Stop on Christmas Eve. Your heart will warm reading poems from the heart. You even may shed a tear when you read about a son's death. As the year goes by you can read about events of the season. Read the stories and poems to class and friends. They bring a great response from all audiences. This is a great collection of stories and poems in one book. Leave on your coffee table for all your guests to browse.

New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All Over but the Shoutin', the warmhearted and hilarious story of how his life was transformed by his love for a poorly behaved, half-blind stray dog. Speck is not a good boy. He is a terrible boy, a defiant, self-destructive, often malodorous boy, a grave robber and screen door moocher who spends his days playing chicken with the Fed Ex man, picking fights with thousand-pound livestock, and rolling in donkey manure, and his nights howling at the moon. He has been that way since the moment he appeared on the ridgeline behind Rick Bragg's house, a starved and half-dead creature, seventy-six pounds of wet hair and poor decisions. Speck arrived in Rick's life at a moment of looming uncertainty. A cancer diagnosis, chemo, kidney failure, and recurring pneumonia had left Rick lethargic and melancholy. Speck helped, and he is helping, still, when he is not peeing on the rose of Sharon. Written with Bragg's inimitable blend of tenderness and sorrow, humor and grit, The Speckled Beauty captures the extraordinary, sustaining devotion between two damaged creatures who need each other to heal.

An unusual coincidence occurred early one morning at the most visited war memorial in the United States as a shaft of sunlight hit one of the 58,282 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The name was Larry Byford. So begins a unique personal journey to discover the story of the name on the wall. Travelling more than 30,000 miles, from east Texas to Vietnam, Mark Byford learns about the lasting impact on Larry's siblings, friends and the comrades who were there with him on the day he died in the summer of 1967. He pinpoints why that time became the turning point of America’s most divisive war of the twentieth century. A Name on a Wall is a gripping true story that focuses on duty, heroism and fate. We learn not only about the tragic loss of Larry Byford, a draftee rifleman in Vietnam, but also the contrasting war story of the author’s own father, Lawry Byford, a draftee from Yorkshire, for whom the Second World War became the springboard for a new life filled with opportunities. Forty years after the final American combat troops left Vietnam, thirty years after The Wall was built to heal a nation, and in the light of the recent controversial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, what lessons, if any, have been learnt through the ultimate sacrifice of the name on a wall?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Part cookbook, part memoir, these “rollicking, poignant, sometimes hilarious tales” (USA Today) are the Pulitzer Prize-winner’s loving tribute to the South, his family and, especially, to his extraordinary mother. Here are irresistible stories and recipes from across generations. They come, skillet by skillet, from Bragg’s ancestors, from feasts and near famine, from funerals and celebrations, and from a thousand tales of family lore as rich and as sumptuous as the dishes they inspired. Deeply personal and unfailingly mouthwatering, The Best Cook in the World is a book to be savored.