National Network for Equitable Library Service

In the latest installment in Wendell Berry's long story about the citizens of Port William, Kentucky, readers learn of the Coulters' children, of the Feltners and Branches, and how survivors "live right on." "Ignorant boys, killing each other," is just about all Nathan Coulter would tell his wife about the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945. Life carried on for the community of Port William, Kentucky, as some boys returned from the war while the lives of others were mourned. In her seventies, Nathan's wife, Hannah, now has time to tell of the years since the war.

Berry opens this latest installment of the Port William series with young Andy Catlett preparing to visit a place he'd been to many times before, though this would be an adventure he will take very seriously. Nine years old, Andy embarks on the trip by bus, alone for the first time.

Mat Feltner struggles to accept the loss of his son as the rest of the Port William community watches the progress of World War II.

From the simple setting of his own barbershop, Jayber Crow -- orphan, seminarian, and native of Port William -- recalls his life and the life of his community as it spends itself in the middle of the twentieth century. Surrounded by his friends and neighbors, he is both participant and witness as the community attempts to transcend its own decline. And meanwhile, Jayber learns the art of devotion and that a faithful love is its own reward.

Ever so slowly Dakota Territory is being transformed from a vast prairie into rich farmland. With the coming of the railroad, the small town of Blessing begins to prosper, and the Bjorklund family is reaping the promised harvest that had lured them from their beloved home in Norway.But for Ingeborg and Haakan, realizing their dreams will not come without a struggle. After their own fields are harvested, Haakan and the neighboring men take the steam engine and the separator on the road, threshing for other homesteaders in return for a portion of their grain.

Three daughters and their husbands are pulled into a triangle of love, jealousy, and fear when their father grows too old to manage the family's fertile thousand acre farm.

Middle-aged Andy Bathgate clings to a precarious life in the logging town of Prince George, British Columbia. He fears the balance he currently enjoys will come undone the moment the truth comes out: that he is not, in fact, Andy Bathgate. What he doesn't realize is that the people of his community aren't as clueless as he believes- and that honesty, decency, and fairness still have a place in the 21st century.

Alexandra Bergsons, the daughter of Swedish immigrants, inherits her family's ailing farm in Hanover, Nebraska upon the death of her father. Over the years, she turns the farm into a successful enterprise. However, success has not brought peace, as passion and love intervene.

An unsettling secret joins husband and wife as they sift through layers of recollection in a quest to find comfort, philosophical acceptance, and ultimately forgiveness. Set on a family farm in Sundre, Alberta during the late 1960s, at a time of transition when farming was shifting away from tradition, Sundre is a haunting meditation on the limits of love and mercy, on the natural and the unnatural.Told in a tone that is as dignified as it is unsettling, Sundre builds to a foreboding and fundamental revelation in a mood reminiscent of Sam Shepards best drama.

Un médecin de la campagne irlandaise est un récit charmant et captivant qui fascinera les lecteurs dès la première page — et les laissera avec l’envie de visiter la campagne irlandaise des jours passés… Barry Laverty, M. D., a toutes les peines du monde à trouver le village de Ballybucklebo en Irlande du Nord sur une carte géographique quand il se met en route pour y chercher un emploi rémunérateur. Cependant, Barry saute sur l’occasion d’occuper un poste d’assistant dans un tout petit cabinet médical de campagne.