The selections in An Outer Banks Reader span the course of more than four and a half centuries, from the first known record of a meeting between Europeans and the Native American residents of the region in 1524 to modern-day accounts of life on the Outer Banks. Together, Stick hopes, these sixty-four selections may provide the reader with an understanding of why the Outer Banks have become home to a rapidly growing number of people who would rather spend the rest of their lives there than any place else on earth.