Frank Carlson Library

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'
'Brilliant ... very probably the funniest book ever written' Sunday Times
When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly-named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire

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After years of turmoil, Virginia Lewis is finally satisfied with her life. God has blessed her with the love of her husband Jonathan and four wonderful children, one of which is the daughter of her wayward childhood friend Jenny. Ten-year-old Mindy has grown into a healthy, faith-filled child and a full-fledged member of the Lewis family. But when a desperate Jenny arrives to reclaim her daughter, Virginia and Jonathan find themselves in a battle...

Eleven-year-old Michael Patrick Kelly from New York City is sent to a foster home, a Missouri farm with a sadistic owner, a bullying son, and a number of secrets, one of which may be murder.

"Tracy Campbell never wanted to leave Hope Harbor, Oregon, or the idyllic three-generation cranberry farm where she grew up. But life--and love--altered her plans. When tragedy strikes and changes her plans yet again, she finds herself back in her hometown with a floundering farm to run and a heartbreaking secret. Romance is not on her agenda. Nor is it on Michael Hunter's. The visitor from Chicago has daunting secrets of his own. But when Tracy recruits...

When Austin Lanier inherits a watermelon farm, all she wants to do is get rid of it and get back to city life. But rancher Rye O'Donnell has other ideas, for both the farm and Austin.

In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression. in a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression. Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and...

Stella used to be a bomb-sniffing dog, but after a terrible accident, she goes to live on a small family farm to recover from her fear of loud noises. As a puppy, Stella was trained to use her powerful beagle nose to sniff out dangerous chemicals and help her handler keep people safe. During a routine security inspection, Stella misses the scent of an explosive. The sound of the blast is loud and scary. Unable to go back to work because of her anxiety,...

Just like you, Ann Voskamp hungers to live her one life well. But what does that look like when your days are gritty, long, and sometimes even dark? Here, Ann invites you to embrace everyday blessings and embark on the transformative spiritual discipline of chronicling God's gifts. In expressing gratitude for the life we already have, we discover the life we've wanted ... a life we can take, give thanks for, and break for others. We come to feel and...

Selina Peake, a young Illinois School teacher, never forgot that beauty was as important as the practical things in life.

In post-World War II Mississippi, two families, one white and one black, struggle to survive in the Jim Crow south. "In Jordan's prize-winning debut, prejudice takes many forms, both subtle and brutal. It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband's Mississippi Delta farm--a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family's struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land....