Best Sociology of Rural Areas Books of 2025

The "Where There Is No Doctor" by Hesperian Health Guides is an essential resource for health workers, clinicians, and anyone involved in primary health care delivery and health promotion programs. The 2022 updated reprint includes a revised family planning chapter, new treatments for various infections, and updated medication information. The book provides practical, easily understood information on how to diagnose, treat, and prevent common diseases, with a focus on nutrition, infection and disease prevention, and diagnostic techniques. This book is a must-have for anyone planning to serve overseas or in areas with limited access to medical care.

American Ramble is a captivating memoir about Neil King Jr.'s 26-day walk from Washington, D.C. to New York City. The journey takes him through historic battlefields, cemeteries, farms, and trash mounds, revealing forgotten pockets and overlooked people. King shares his personal story, making the narrative both personal and political. The writing is beautiful, and the book offers an exquisite account of personal and national renewal. American Ramble is a must-read for anyone seeking to rediscover what matters in life and see our national story with new eyes.

The Forgotten Girls is a poignant memoir that tells the story of two best friends, Monica and Darci, who grew up in the rural foothills of the Ozarks. Despite their shared love of learning and desire to escape their town, Monica went to college and achieved her dreams, while Darci succumbed to addiction, homelessness, and single motherhood. Through her personal account, Monica Potts sheds light on the challenges faced by working-class women in rural America and the complex sociological factors that limit their choices. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the lives of forgotten women in America.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities is a groundbreaking work that provides a framework for assessing the vitality of cities. Jane Jacobs' prose is outstandingly immediate as she writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe, the role of neighborhoods in the larger organism of the city, and the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. This book has become the standard against which all endeavors in urban planning are measured. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of our cities and how we can create vibrant, diverse, and safe neighborhoods.

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER IS NOW A MAJOR-MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD AND STARRING AMY ADAMS, GLENN CLOSE, AND GABRIEL BASSO"You will not read a more important book about America this year."—The Economist "A riveting book."—The Wall Street Journal"Essential reading."—David Brooks, New York TimesHillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America is a book by Beth Macy, which has been adapted into a Hulu limited series. The book explores the opioid epidemic in America, discussing its origins and how it has affected various communities. Macy delves into the role of big pharma, doctors, and patients in shaping a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm. Through compelling portraits of families and first responders, Macy highlights the devastating impact of opioid addiction and the urgent need for action. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the opioid epidemic and its far-reaching consequences.

The 25th-anniversary edition of "Friday Night Lights" is a classic American sports writing that tells the story of a high school football team and its profound impact on the town and community. Pulitzer Prize winner H. G. Bissinger captures a season in the life of Odessa, Texas, and how the single-minded devotion to the team shapes and inspires the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms. The book is more than just about football; it's a critical look at how high school football impacts a football-crazed community. This edition features a new afterword by the author. Overall, "Friday Night Lights" is a must-read for sports fans and anyone interested in the impact of sports on small-town communities.

From Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author of Newjack, a passage through an America lived wild and off the grid, where along with independence and stunning views come fierce winds, neighbors with criminal pasts, and minimal government and medical services.. “In these dispatches, [Conover] invites readers to ride shotgun along an unraveling edge of the American West, where sepia-toned myths about making a fresh start collide with modern modes of alienation, volatility, and exile.... In a nation whose edges have come to define its center, this is essential reading.”—Jessica Bruder, author of Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century . In May 2017, Ted Conover went to Colorado to explore firsthand a rural way of life that is about living cheaply, on your own land—and keeping clear of the mainstream. The failed subdivisions of the enormous San Luis Valley make this possible. Five-acre lots on the high prairie can be had for five thousand dollars, sometimes less. . Conover volunteered for a local group trying to prevent homelessness during the bitter winters. He encountered an unexpected diversity: veterans with PTSD, families homeschooling, addicts young and old, gay people, people of color, lovers of guns and marijuana, people with social anxiety—most of them spurning charity and aiming, and sometimes failing, to be self-sufficient. And more than a few predicting they’ll be the last ones standing when society collapses.. Conover bought his own five acres and immersed himself for parts of four years in the often contentious culture of the far margins. He found many who dislike the government but depend on its subsidies; who love their space but nevertheless find themselves in each other’s business; who are generous but wary of thieves; who endure squalor but appreciate beauty. In their struggles to survive and get along, they tell us about an America riven by difference where the edges speak more and more loudly to the mainstream.

First published in 1972, The Foxfire Book was a surprise bestseller that brought Appalachia's philosophy of simple living to hundreds of thousands of readers. Whether you wanted to hunt game, bake the old-fashioned way, or learn the art of successful moonshining, The Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center had a contact who could teach you how with clear, step-by-step instructions.. This classic debut volume of the acclaimed series covers a diverse array of crafts and practical skills, including log cabin building, hog dressing, basketmaking, cooking, fencemaking, crop planting, hunting, and moonshining, as well as a look at the history of local traditions like snake lore and faith healing.