Journey along with Monk and his critters: their antics and mishaps will keep you laughing, and sometimes crying, til you turn the last page.

Annie had never met David Roswell, but she sensed she knew the ambitious pediatrician. By the time David insinuates himself into her life, Annie is hard-pressed to balance the duties of single parenthood. Maybe the stress of a new love explains Annie's chronic physical pain. Or perhaps it is David's opposition to decisions she's made that dramatically affect them both.

Originally released in 1932, Wayman Hogue's Back Yonder is a rare and entertaining memoir of life in rural Arkansas during the decades follow- ing the Civil War. Using family legends, personal memories, and events from Arkansas history, Hogue, like his contemporary Laura Ingalls Wilder, creatively weaves a narrative of a family making its way in rug- ged, impoverished, and sometimes violent places. From one-room schoolhouses to moonshiners, the details in Hogue's story capture the essence of a particular time and place, even as the characters reflect a universal quality that endears them to the mod- ern reader. This reissue of Back Yonder, the first in the Chronicles of the Ozarks series, features an introduction by historian Brooks Blevins that explores the life of Charles Wayman Hogue, analyzes the people and events that inspired the book, and places the volume in the context of America's discovery of the Ozarks in the years between the World Wars.

The story of the author's colorful childhood in the Ozarks. Reflective reading for those who like a nostalgic journey into the past.

Beloved TV host Bill Geist pens a reflective memoir of his incredible summers spent in the heart of America in this New York Times bestseller. Before there was "tourism" and souvenir ashtrays became "kitsch," the Lake of the Ozarks was a Shangri-La for middle-class Midwestern families on vacation, complete with man-made beaches, Hillbilly Mini Golf, and feathered rubber tomahawks. It was there that author Bill Geist spent summers in the Sixties during his school and college years working at Arrowhead Lodge -- a small resort owned by his bombastic uncle -- in all areas of the operation, from cesspool attendant to bellhop. What may have seemed just a summer job became, upon reflection, a transformative era where a cast of eccentric, small-town characters and experiences shaped (some might suggest "slightly twisted") Bill into the man he is today. He realized it was this time in his life that had a direct influence on his sensibilities, his humor, his writing, and ultimately a career searching the world for other such untamed creatures for the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and CBS News. In Lake of the Ozarks, Emmy Award-winning CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Bill Geist reflects on his coming of age in the American Heartland and traces his evolution as a man and a writer. He shares laugh-out-loud anecdotes and tongue-in-cheek observations guaranteed to evoke a strong sense of nostalgia for "the good ol' days." Written with Geistian wit and warmth, Lake of the Ozarks takes readers back to a bygone era, and demonstrates how you can find inspiration in the most unexpected places.

Find a creek bank. Pull up a stump, have a seat and gaze into the water. Drift back through the years as the sun warms your face and insects skitter across the surface. Think about what life was like for a boy and his dog a half century ago, way back in the Ozark Mountains.

Traces the history and development of the Lake of the Ozarks region from the building of the Bagnell Dam in 1929 through the growth of the towns in the region in the 1950's.