FOLKS WHO ARE TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL

In “Paper Girl,” acclaimed journalist Beth Macy returns to her Ohio hometown and finds a community far different from the one she remembers growing up. Factories have disappeared. Local newspapers have withered. Addiction, political division, and economic instability have reshaped daily life. As Macy reflects on her family history, she also examines the broader unraveling of working-class America through the lens of a hawk-eyed reporter. Macy spent decades writing for The Roanoke Times in Roanoke, Virginia, where she still lives. But “Paper Girl” never reads like detached analysis. Macy writes with deep empathy, especially toward people whose choices or beliefs she struggles to understand. What results feels intimate, complicated, and painfully human — the kind of story that makes you think differently about your own family, especially loved ones who disagree with you.

PEOPLE WHO LIKE HOT GOSSIP

Some families pass down heirlooms. Others pass down encrypted diaries full of sex, secrets, and existential dread. In “Cipher: Decoding My Ancestor’s Scandalous Secret Diaries,” Western North Carolina writer Jeremy B. Jones unpacks the true story of his fourth great-grandfather, William Thomas Prestwood, a 19th-century North Carolina farmer whose coded journals were discovered inside a house slated for demolition decades after his death. What follows is part memoir and part historical investigation as Jones traces Prestwood’s life across slavery, the Civil War, gold mining, forbidden relationships, and moral contradictions that still feel relevant today. The result is so deliciously readable you’ll inhale it like hot gossip at a church potluck.

READERS WHO WANT TO DISAPPEAR INTO THE WOODS

There’s a particular kind of Appalachian fantasy that creeps into your brain after a bad week: deleting your email, building a cabin deep in the mountains, and letting society sort itself out. “These Silent Woods” taps directly into that impulse — and then quietly dismantles it piece by piece. Kimi Cunningham Grant’s tense, atmospheric novel follows Cooper and his daughter Finch, who’ve spent years hidden away in a remote Appalachian Pennsylvania cabin. Finch has grown up surrounded by books, wilderness, and silence, but as she gets older, the fragile life Cooper built begins to crack open. Beneath the suspense sits a surprisingly tender story about grief, guilt, and the realities of parenthood.

CREEK KIDS

If you grew up in Appalachia, there’s a decent chance part of your childhood involved crouching beside creeks, peering into shallow water for aquatic critters. “Helga the Hellbender” captures that exact sense of muddy-kneed wonder. Written by North Carolina author Erica Andrews, this children’s book follows a giant hellbender salamander named Helga whose rockpile home has suddenly disappeared. With help from her park ranger sidekick, Helga unravels clues and delivers a gentle lesson in preserving the hellbender's natural habitat.

ANYONE LEARNING TO BEGIN AGAIN 

Poetry collections can be tricky for people with chaotic reading habits (ask me how I know), but “Ports and Portals” has an emotional momentum that keeps pulling you forward. Written by Roanoke, Virginia poet Katryn Broadoak during and after her breast cancer diagnosis, the collection explores the strange work of becoming yourself again after tragedy. Though the subject matter is certainly heavy, the poems never feel self-pitying or overly precious. Instead, Broadoak writes with honesty, flashes of humor, and just enough irreverence to keep the collection grounded. If you’re learning how to carry grief without letting it harden you, this is the perfect read.