Cathy Jansen is a small-town girl with big ideas. Strong-willed and stubborn, she grows up with too much independence and not enough guidance, enjoying the wilder side of life, which ends up leading her down unforeseen paths. While still in high school, Cathy gets pregnant, and although the school suggests she quit, she is determined to carry on with her education. Despite her resolve, Cathy must learn lessons the hard way. She struggles with self-esteem and identity issues as she fights to survive the ridicule and stigma of being a teenage mother. Her difficulties lead her toward her life's purpose, teaching Cathy to trust the "little voice inside" and create a new path of success, selflessness, and meaning. Cathy begins to understand the love of Jesus as she learns the rules and reasons leading her path. Despite heartbreak and frustration, she discovers ambition and appreciation, eventually finding a way to live without fear while living in love. Cathy's journey is one of trials and tribulations, but with tenacity, she unearths herself and happiness and recognizes God. "This book is authentic, important and real-just like its author. If we all had the courage to show our struggle instead of only our triumph the way she has, the world would be a far more beautiful place." -Meghan Heritage, creator and founder of the Be Event and owner of BlueWest Properties

White trash. The phrase conjures up images of dirty rural folk who are poor, ignorant, violent, and incestuous. But where did this stigmatizing phrase come from? And why do these stereotypes persist? Matt Wray answers these and other questions by delving into the long history behind this term of abuse and others like it. Ranging from the early 1700s to the early 1900s, Not Quite White documents the origins and transformations of the multiple meanings projected onto poor rural whites in the United States. Wray draws on a wide variety of primary sources—literary texts, folklore, diaries and journals, medical and scientific articles, social scientific analyses—to construct a dense archive of changing collective representations of poor whites. Of crucial importance are the ideas about poor whites that circulated through early-twentieth-century public health campaigns, such as hookworm eradication and eugenic reforms. In these crusades, impoverished whites, particularly but not exclusively in the American South, were targeted for interventions by sanitarians who viewed them as “filthy, lazy crackers” in need of racial uplift and by eugenicists who viewed them as a “feebleminded menace” to the white race, threats that needed to be confined and involuntarily sterilized. Part historical inquiry and part sociological investigation, Not Quite White demonstrates the power of social categories and boundaries to shape social relationships and institutions, to invent groups where none exist, and to influence policies and legislation that end up harming the very people they aim to help. It illuminates not only the cultural significance and consequences of poor white stereotypes but also how dominant whites exploited and expanded these stereotypes to bolster and defend their own fragile claims to whiteness.

What was a poor white trash daughter, one of thirteen children of an abusive, alcoholic father and submissive mother, doing at a reception with the President of the United States of America in the White House? Living in a tin barn with dirt floors, no plumbing, and being able to lie in bed at night and look at the stars seemed so far away now. How did Wanda Pope get from going to bed at night and being told to go to sleep so she wouldn't know she was hungry to having a glass of wine with the president of the United States? Growing up wondering if tonight would be the night that her father wouldn't miss when he shot at her mother? Would she or one of her siblings possibly die tonight, or would they still be able to go dig in dumpsters the next day for food? How did she ever get out of so much poverty?

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S TOP TEN NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR A LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK SELECTION • A BOOKLIST EDITORS' CHOICE BOOK SELECTION One doctor's passionate and profound memoir of his experience grappling with race, bias, and the unique health problems of black Americans When Damon Tweedy begins medical school,he envisions a bright future where his segregated, working-class background will become largely irrelevant. Instead, he finds that he has joined a new world where race is front and center. The recipient of a scholarship designed to increase black student enrollment, Tweedy soon meets a professor who bluntly questions whether he belongs in medical school, a moment that crystallizes the challenges he will face throughout his career. Making matters worse, in lecture after lecture the common refrain for numerous diseases resounds, "More common in blacks than in whites." Black Man in a White Coat examines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine. As Tweedy transforms from student to practicing physician, he discovers how often race influences his encounters with patients. Through their stories, he illustrates the complex social, cultural, and economic factors at the root of many health problems in the black community. These issues take on greater meaning when Tweedy is himself diagnosed with a chronic disease far more common among black people. In this powerful, moving, and deeply empathic book, Tweedy explores the challenges confronting black doctors, and the disproportionate health burdens faced by black patients, ultimately seeking a way forward to better treatment and more compassionate care.

When the Saberton Corporation declares war against the Zombie Mafia, Angel and the remnants of her gang must claw their way through corporate intrigue, zombie drugs and undead trafficking to rescue their friends.

This collection is devoted to exploring stereotypes about the social conditions of poor whites in the United States and comparing these stereotypes with the social reality.

When hordes of people descend on her hometown for the Deep South Zombie Fest, Angel, submerged in redneck hell, is determined to focus on her upcoming college midterms until a decapitated body turns up at the edge of town, changing her plans.