My Favorite Appalachian Books
Discover the best Appalachian books in our curated reading list, featuring Silas House's Clay's Quilt, Janisse Ray's Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, and The Foxfire Book for authentic mountain fiction, memoirs, and heritage.
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The Foxfire Book
by Foxfire Fund, Inc.
First published in 1972, The Foxfire Book was a surprise bestseller that brought Appalachia's philosophy of simple living to hundreds of thousands of readers. Whether you wanted to hunt game, bake the old-fashioned way, or learn the art of successful moonshining, The Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center had a contact who could teach you how with clear, step-by-step instructions. This classic debut volume of the acclaimed series covers a diverse array of crafts and practical skills, including log cabin building, hog dressing, basketmaking, cooking, fencemaking, crop planting, hunting, and moonshining, as well as a look at the history of local traditions like snake lore and faith healing.
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Clay's Quilt
by Silas House
From a new voice in Southern literature comes a heart-stirring story of one man's search for family and the people who join him as he shapes a life of his own.
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Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
by Janisse Ray
A memoir of a childhood, spend in an isolated Georgia community of Crackers, that grew into a passion to save the vanishing longleaf pine ecocystem in which she was raised.
