This Unusual Volume of short essays comes from thirty-three Arkansans, who recall their favorite places in the Natural State. Including sketches by lifelong natives and emigres, the collection presents sensitive descriptions of childhood play spots, special home sites, physical landmarks, towns, rivers, mountaintops, highways, and interior places. Maps and photographs locate the hallowed spots, ranging broadly over the state. Designed in journal format, blank pages at the end of the book invite private entries for My Favorite Place by the owner of the book, allowing it to be given as a gift to visitors or as a memento for the next generation. Originally compiled by the staff of the Arkansas Times, Somewhere Apart has been extended, honed, and polished by The University of Arkansas Press into a gem of a book. My first remembrances are of mud and dust, white and black people, horses and mules. -- Robert Pugh I'm a child of the hills. My roots are in Cass, in the Boston Mountains, where my great-grandmother ... grew up on the Mulberry River. -- Barbara Pryor Arkansas has a rough sort of beauty that often bears a sting or an itch. -- John Churchill A stair of fieldstones led down to the pool. On the hottest days of summer we'd have to splash water on them so they wouldn't burn our bare feet. -- Lucinda Williams I always suggest visitors get a massage, eat a really good meal of slow food at any of a dozen or so chef-owned restaurants, buy something made and sold only right here, nap, relax. -- Crescent Dragonwagon The sun rising on a cold, clear morning, a mutual goal and plenty of time dedicated to conversation with my son make that remote duck blind a specialplace. -- Jim Kelley This thoroughly charming village still has a 'square' of sorts with buildings on four sides, including a still-serving cafe (where once I ordered peach 'clobber' from the menu), a still-paying bank, and even a still-fixing mechanic running 'Malfunction Junction.' -- Donald Harington The barns and sheds have sheltered hay, tools, field vermin, lovers, the broken hearted, playing grandchildren, and, now, family reunions. -- Carl Stover Everybody needs a laughing place -- and this is the one for me -- Elizabeth Jacoway