Rural Development

From a young age, Cobie Galloway made a career of playing the girl-next-door on the silver screen. Only, she's not a teenager anymore. Pop star Lila Wilder built a multimedia empire by always having her finger on the pulse of what's hot. However, as she struggles to produce her next smash hit record, she's finding it hard to keep her name in the public eye. Both women tentatively agree to a headline-grabbing fauxmance, with two simple rules: Always stick to the script, and never forget that on the stage of public perception, nothing is real.

An "instant classic", this genre-bending blend of naturalism, memoir, and social manifesto is a fascinating study for rewilding the city, the self, and society (Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author). During the real estate crash of the late 2000s, Christopher Brown purchased an...

Zoë Colville spent years in a fancy hair salon with a long list of clients, living on cigarettes, croissants, and a shoestring. It was everything she'd ever wanted. But when an unexpected and overwhelming loss caused her life to shift unexpectedly, she found herself on a different path. One where the only use for a hairdryer is warming new-born lambs; where the cycle of life on a farm gives new meaning on purpose, and where nature is both a strict teacher and a balm to soothe the pressures of everyday life.

Farming has been in John Connell's family for generations, but he never intended to follow in his father's footsteps. Until, one winter, after more than a decade away, he finds himself back on the farm. Connell records the hypnotic rhythm of the farming day - cleaning the barns, caring for the herd, tending to sickly lambs, helping the cows give birth. Alongside the routine events, there are the unforeseen moments when things go wrong: when a calf fails to thrive, when a sheep goes missing, when an argument between father and son erupts and things are said that cannot be unsaid.

Set in early 1950s rural South Carolina, One Good Mama Bone chronicles Sarah Creamer's quest to find her "mama bone", after she is left to care for a boy who is not her own but instead is the product of an affair between her husband and her best friend and neighbor, a woman she calls "sister". When her husband drinks himself to death, Sarah, a dirt-poor homemaker with no family to rely on and the note on the farm long past due, must find a way for her and young Emerson Bridge to survive.

What is a normal life, anyway? Perfect parents, who never argued or made a mistake? Some 2.2 perfectly behaved children who magically morphed into honor students, then doctors and lawyers with no problems, or nary a regret? All this, evolving from the safety of some picket fence inside the boundaries of which never a harsh word was spoken? How far back must you go in your family before hitting grief or hurt? Steve Watkins never knew what to call it, but he knew something about growing up on a small rural farm in the 1980s felt different. Something strange and out of the ordinary.

Nolan Jackson is a journeyman carpenter by trade and a wanderer by nature. And in 2007, while fellow Americans fight in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Nolan roams, traveling between jobs building tract homes across the West. Following a shocking workplace accident in Las Vegas, he uproots himself from the tentative relationships he has made and heads toward the ocean.

Small-town drama makes Hollywood look like a walk in the park. For those going through a divorce in a small town and are ready to feel confident, capable, and competent, now is the time to take action with Small Town Divorce. Denise Anderson walked through those same trenches after experiencing her own dramatic small-town divorce. She has coached and mentored dozens of others who have experienced similar drama, taking them from surviving to thriving.

Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child to her mother's abandonment and now an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Yet when her grandmother calls and asks her to watch over the children of a recent widower in a small, isolated town in Colorado, she takes it as a chance to finally organize her life.

Texas, 1976: Odessa steht kurz vor dem nächsten Ölboom. Während die Männer der Stadt den kommenden Wohlstand feiern, kennen und fürchten ihre Frauen die Gewalt, die immer zu folgen scheint. Als die vierzehnjährige Gloria Ramírez mehr tot als lebendig auf der Veranda von Mary Whiteheads Ranch gefunden wird, wissen Mary und die anderen Frauen von Odessa, was jetzt passieren wird. Aber sie wissen auch, dass sie dieses Mal zusammenhalten werden. Eine eindringliche Erkundung der Schnittstellen von Gewalt, Herkunft und Klasse.

Some writers look at life with their eyes, others with their heart. In this collection of evocative, funny, and moving stories, Peter Damm does both. These are vignettes of growing up in small town, rural Michigan, but also a closely observed portrait of mid-century America. The tone is alternately wry, elegiac, poignant, and humorous, as Damm recalls the joys of fishing on a northern lake, the rigors and confusion of childhood, or feasting on blueberries in autumn.

With 750 million people living in villages, India has the largest rural population in the world. Based on his Indian experience, Dr Kalam recommends a sustainable and inclusive development system called PURA - Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas - to uplift the rural masses not by subsidies but through entrepreneurship with community participation. Dr Kalam cites the examples of individuals and institutions, in India and from across the world, who, with an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to make a difference, have successfully tapped into the potential of the rural masses.