PEN/O. Henry Prize-winning author Matthew Neill Null's lyrical and disquieting stories offer a panoramic portrait of his native West Virginia.

In Coffin Honey, his seventh book of poems, celebrated poet Todd Davis explores the many forms of violence we do to each other and to the other living beings with whom we share the planet. Here racism, climate collapse, and pandemic, as well as the very real threat of extinction—both personal and across ecosystems—are dramatized in intimate portraits of Rust-Belt Appalachia: a young boy who has been sexually assaulted struggles with dreams of revenge and the possible solace that nature might provide; a girl whose boyfriend has enlisted in the military faces pregnancy alone; and a bear named Ursus navigates the fecundity of the forest after his own mother’s death, literally crashing into the encroaching human world. Each poem in Coffin Honey seeks to illuminate beauty and suffering, the harrowing precipice we find ourselves walking nearer to in the twenty-first century. As with his past prize-winning volumes, Davis, whose work Orion Magazine likens to that of Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver, names the world with love and care, demonstrating what one reviewer describes as his knowledge of “Latin names, common names, habitats, and habits . . . steeped in the exactness of the earth and the science that unfolds in wildness.”

Meet Michael Skelly, the man boldly harnessing wind energy that could power America’s future and break its fossil fuel dependence in this “essential, compelling look into the future of the nation’s power grid” (Bryan Burrough, author of The Big Rich). The United States is in the midst of an energy transition. We have fallen out of love with dirty fossil fuels and want to embrace renewable energy sources like wind and solar. A transition from a North American power grid that is powered mostly by fossil fuels to one that is predominantly clean is feasible, but it would require a massive building spree—wind turbines, solar panels, wires, and billions of dollars would be needed. Enter Michael Skelly, an infrastructure builder who began working on wind energy in 2000 when many considered the industry a joke. Eight years later, Skelly helped build the second largest wind power company in the United States—and sold it for $2 billion. Wind energy was no longer funny—it was well on its way to powering more than 6% of electricity in the United States. Award-winning journalist, Russel Gold tells Skelly’s story, which in many ways is the story of our nation’s evolving relationship with renewable energy. Gold illustrates how Skelly’s company, Clean Line Energy, conceived the idea for a new power grid that would allow sunlight where abundant to light up homes in the cloudy states thousands of miles away, and take wind from the Great Plains to keep air conditioners running in Atlanta. Thrilling, provocative, and important, Superpower is a fascinating look at America’s future.

A searing, on-the-ground examination of the coal industry—and the workers left behind—in the midst of an environmental crisis, addiction, and rising white nationalism. The past few years have highlighted the paradox at the heart of coal country. Despite fueling a century of American progress, its people are being left behind, suffering from unemployment, addiction, and environmental crises often at greater rates than anywhere else in the country. But what if Appalachia’s troubles are just a taste of what the future holds for all of us? Appalachian Fall tells the captivating true story of coal communities on the leading edge of change. A group of local reporters known as the Ohio Valley ReSource shares the real-world impact these changes have had on what was once the heart and soul of America. Including stories about the miners striking in Harlan County after their company suddenly went bankrupt, bouncing their paychecks; the farmers tilling former mining ground for new cash crops like hemp and maple syrup; the activists working to fight mountaintop removal and bring clean energy jobs to the region; and the mothers mourning the loss of their children to overdose and despair. In the wake of the controversial bestseller Hillbilly Elegy, Appalachian Fall addresses what our country owes to a region that provided fuel for a century and what it risks if it stands by watching as the region, and its people, collapse.

The largest edible fruit native to the United States tastes like a cross between a banana and a mango. It grows wild in twenty-six states, gracing Eastern forests each fall with sweet-smelling, tropical-flavored abundance. Historically, it fed and sustained Native Americans and European explorers, presidents, and enslaved African Americans, inspiring folk songs, poetry, and scores of place names from Georgia to Illinois. Its trees are an organic grower’s dream, requiring no pesticides or herbicides to thrive, and containing compounds that are among the most potent anticancer agents yet discovered. So why have so few people heard of the pawpaw, much less tasted one? In Pawpaw—a 2016 James Beard Foundation Award nominee in the Writing & Literature category—author Andrew Moore explores the past, present, and future of this unique fruit, traveling from the Ozarks to Monticello; canoeing the lower Mississippi in search of wild fruit; drinking pawpaw beer in Durham, North Carolina; tracking down lost cultivars in Appalachian hollers; and helping out during harvest season in a Maryland orchard. Along the way, he gathers pawpaw lore and knowledge not only from the plant breeders and horticulturists working to bring pawpaws into the mainstream (including Neal Peterson, known in pawpaw circles as the fruit’s own “Johnny Pawpawseed”), but also regular folks who remember eating them in the woods as kids, but haven’t had one in over fifty years. As much as Pawpaw is a compendium of pawpaw knowledge, it also plumbs deeper questions about American foodways—how economic, biologic, and cultural forces combine, leading us to eat what we eat, and sometimes to ignore the incredible, delicious food growing all around us. If you haven’t yet eaten a pawpaw, this book won’t let you rest until you do.

From the sandstone ridges and shale valleys of western Maryland to the sand dunes and tidal estuaries on Delaware's coast, the geologic features of the Mid-Atlantic region include a diverse array of rocks and landforms assembled during more than 1 billion years of geologic history. The book's introduction presents an overview of the geologic history of Maryland, Delaware, and Washington, D.C., and 35 road guides discuss the landforms and rocks visible from a car window, along bike paths, and at nearby waysides and parks, including Chesapeake Ohio Canal National Historic Park, Assateague Island National Seashore, Rock Creek Park, and Cape Henlopen State Park.