In Kentucky Traveler, Ricky Skaggs, the music legend who revived modern bluegrass music, gives a warm, honest, one-of-a-kind memoir of forty years in music—along with the Ten Commandments of Bluegrass, as handed down by Ricky’s mentor Bill Monroe; the Essential Guide to Bedrock Country Songs, a lovingly compiled walk through the songs that have moved Skaggs the most throughout his life; Songs the Lord Taught Us, a primer on Skaggs’s most essential gospel songs; and a bevy of personal snapshots of his musical heroes. For readers of Johnny Cash’s autobiography, lovers of O Brother Where Art Thou, and fans of country music and bluegrass, Kentucky Traveler is a priceless look at America’s most cherished and vibrant musical tradition through the eyes of someone who has lived it.

A guide to the odd and interesting history, places, and people in Kentucky.

Like wine lovers who dream of traveling to Bordeaux or beer enthusiasts with visions of the breweries of Belgium, bourbon lovers plan their pilgrimages to Kentucky. Some of the most famous distilleries are tucked away in the scenic Bluegrass region, which is home to nearly seventy distilleries and responsible for 95 percent of all of America's bourbon production. Locals and tourists alike continue to seek out the world's finest whiskeys in Kentucky as interest in America's only native spirit continues to grow. In Kentucky Bourbon Country, now in its third edition, Susan Reigler offers updated, essential information and practical advice to anyone considering a trip to the state's distilleries (including the state's booming craft distillery sector) or the restaurants and bars on the Urban Bourbon Trail. Featuring more than two hundred full-color photographs and a bourbon glossary, the book is organized by region and provides valuable details about the Bluegrass—including attractions near each distillery and notes on restaurants, lodging, shopping, and seasonal events in Kentucky's beautiful historic towns. In addition to providing knowledge about each point of interest, Kentucky Bourbon Country weaves in little-known facts about the region's best-kept secrets, such as the historic distillery used as a set in the movie Stripes and the fates of used bourbon barrels. Whether you're interested in visiting the place where your favorite bourbon is made or hoping to discover exciting new varieties, this handy and practical guide is the key to enjoying the best of bourbon.

The crossing of America's first great divide—the Appalachian Mountains—has been a source of much fascination but has received little attention from modern historians. In the eighteenth century, the Wilderness Road and Ohio River routes into Kentucky presented daunting natural barriers and the threat of Indian attack. Running Mad for Kentucky brings this adventure to life. Primarily a collection of travel diaries, it includes day-to-day accounts that illustrate the dangers thousands of Americans, adult and child, black and white, endured to establish roots in the wilderness. Ellen Eslinger's vivid and extensive introductory essay draws on numerous diaries, letters, and oral histories of trans-Appalachian travelers to examine the historic consequences of the journey, a pivotal point in the saga of the continent's indigenous people. The book demonstrates how the fabled soil of Kentucky captured the imagination of a young nation.

This is a personal record. But it is not so much an autobiography as it is a recalling of the people and events and ideas that made an impact on Jim Garland one way or another, helping him to construct an understanding of the world into which he happened to be thrown by accident of birth. He lived through times that deserve hurlyburly adjectives -- roiled, convulsive, tumultuous. From first-hand experience he knew about hunger, violent death and injury in the mines, strikes, blacklists, murderous gun thugs, clandestine meetings, fear, Red-baiting, desperate poverty, the Great Depression in all its infamy. He speeaks here not as a scholar but as a survivor. Others can write of these same times with much greater omniscience, with olympian detachment or with passionate outportings of theory buttressed by long hours in the library. This is a different kind of record entirely.

A drive straight across the Bluegrass State takes nearly eight hours. But that would bypass all the worthwhile distractions between Paw Paw in Pike County and the Kentucky Bend of the Mississippi River in Fulton County. Treasures like Abraham Lincoln's boyhood home that rests inside a Greek-style temple. Or the Jefferson Davis monument rising from a field in Fairview. From rip-roaring barn dances in Rabbit Hash to the silent reverence of the monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani, the Commonwealth is chock-full of timeless landmarks. Join native Kentuckians Cameron M. Ludwick and Blair Thomas Hess as they explore all the amazing and irreplaceable things that make the state one of a kind.

Language scholars have traditionally agreed that the development of the English language was largely unplanned. John H. Fisher challenges this view, demonstrating that the standardization of writing and pronunciation was, and still is, made under the control of political and intellectual forces. In these essays Fisher chronicles his gradual realization that Standard English was not a popular evolution at all but was the direct result of political decisions made by the Lancastrian administrations of Henry IV and Henry V. To achieve standardization and acceptance of the vernacular, these kings turned to their Chancery scribes, who were responsible for writing and copying legal and royal documents. Chaucer, a relative of the king, began to be labeled by the government as a master of the language, and it was Henry V who inspired the fifteenth-century tradition of citing Chaucer as the "maker" of English. An even more important link between language development and government practice is the fact that Chaucer himself composed in the English of the Chancery scribes. Fisher discusses the development of Chancery practices, royal involvement in promoting use of the vernacular, Chaucer's use of English, Caxton's use of Chancery Standard, and the nineteenth-century phenomenon of a standard, or "received," pronunciation of English. This engaging and clearly written work will change the way scholars understand the development of English and think about the intentional shaping of our language.