Any book that starts out at the Wytheville VA bus station and then goes back in time several hundred years is all right by me. This is a large and detailed examination of an area (whose precise boundaries have always been a matter of some dispute) as a unique cultural and geopolitical construct, and I found it compelling and revealing. I went to school at the northern edge of Appalachia and now live off the southern edge, and the land in between has always held a fascination for me. And by the way, the covers beautiful.
