Sammy Reisinger is a 17-year old violin prodigy from a wealthy New Jersey family. She has inherited a priceless Cremonese violin and she is schooled in the classics. Becoming enamored with traditional Appalachian music, she decides to visit the venerable Old Fiddlers Convention in Galax, Virginia. While there, disaster strikes, leaving her seemingly trapped and orphaned. This is the story of how she and her tiny host community deal with an epic disaster.

Books with names about famous trains are frequently written by historians and are filled with endless facts such as ridership figures, equipment types, and servicedetails. This is not one of those books.Instead, Chasing the Powhatan Arrow is a fresh look at the people, communities, and issues affecting the population outside the train along its 600-plus mile route. This book presents a wide range of issues, including the history of tobacco, coal mining, and the Civil War to c...

IN 2004 THE VIRGINIA STATE LEGISLATURE issued a proclamation declaring a series of roads throughout the southwestern part of the state to be the Virginia Heritage Music Trail, to showcase the traditional Appalachian music whose roots permeated the culture. They nicknamed it The Crooked Road.The music had been there since the arrival of the first European and African immigrants, but the initiative gave it a geographic focus. The Crooked Road has since become one of the nation's most ...

When Marjorie Taliaferro's beloved twin sister Sally Taliaferro Bradley is stricken with breast cancer, it's tragic enough. But when the governorship of the Commonwealth of Virginia, a position she rightfully deserves, is wrested from her during her infirmity, it is an action that cannot stand. Marjorie and her life partner Liza Randolph, along with a cadre of supporters, lay forth plans to recapture Sally's lawful position and along with it a measure of fair governance to the state.

Wayne Derek Quarles wins no sainthood awards. Within the span of a week, his malevolence causes him to lose his job, his Hummer, and his wife. On his way to visit an elderly great-uncle in tiny Union, West Virginia, Wayne's life turns even more wretched as injuries force him to stay for awhile.At his new home and while convalescing, Wayne learns of an ancestor who left his native Monroe County, Virginia and returns home wounded and angry, now living in a new state, West Virginia. Wa...

Southern West Virginia is one of the poorest areas in America. With the collapse of coal mining industry jobs beginning in the 1950s and continuing to today, thousands of people have left, leaving behind a society marked by poverty, malnutrition, and drug abuse.A new scourge has emerged literally on the horizon: mountaintop removal mining. This assault on the landscape and the remaining people has been complete, with poisoned water, fouled air, decimated wildlife, and the utter dest...

Rätselhafte Katastrophen erschüttern weltweit die Erdölkonzerne. Bohrinseln und Förderanlagen explodieren, Tankschiffe und Treibstofflager fliegen in die Luft und alle Fahrzeuge und Maschinen, die mit Verbrennungsmotoren angetrieben werden, versagen und niemand weiß warum. Die Menscheit steht am Abgrund. Eine fieberhafte Forschung nach Ursachen und Auswegen beginnt.

In his new collection of poetry and abstract paintings, Michael Falugi, evokes poetic images through his words and paintings, where fantasy and reality intertwine in a seamless fashion.His poetry and paintings are filled with stunning imagery - both unique and natural. The distinctiveness of his images gives his poetry a curious kind of clarity. Falugi finds his way between fantasy and reality, with his gift to capture memorable, fleeting moments, where everything is uncommon and n...

In the first multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln to be published in decades, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame offers a fresh look at the life of one of America’s greatest presidents. Incorporating the field notes of earlier biographers, along with decades of research in multiple manuscript archives and long-neglected newspapers, this remarkable work will both alter and reinforce our current understanding of America’s sixteenth president.Volume 1 covers Lincoln’s early child...

"A diverse and thoughtful array of 16 stories written around the theme of endangered species—be they human or animal, mythical or alien." — Publishers WeeklyIn this poignant yet uplifting anthology about extinction, science fiction stories draw you into compelling, adventurous, and even humorous tales that will make you think about the future of animals, humanity, and the world around us. You'll find bugs and buffalo, humans and aliens, creatures that have ...

Hailed as the definitive portrait of the sixteenth president, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame's impressive two-volume biography has been masterfully abridged and revised.Sixteenth president of the United States, the Great Emancipator, and a surpassingly eloquent champion of national unity, freedom, and democracy, Abraham Lincoln is arguably the most studied and admired of all Americans. Michael Burlingame's astonishing Abraham Lincoln: A Life, edited an...

Many of the Bible's characters and stories are also found in the Qur'an, but there are often differing details or new twists in the Qur'an's retelling of biblical narrative. In this compelling book, seasoned theologian Michael Lodahl explores these fascinating divergences to discover the theological difference they make.Writing from a Christian perspective that is respectful of the Islamic tradition, Lodahl offers an accessible introduction to Muslim theology and to the Qur'an's le...