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Playing Books & Bites Bingo? Try these suggestions for the prompt, a book by a Kentucky author.
Updated July 18, 2024
Jessamine County Public Library
Books and Bites
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I loved you in another life
Arnold, David
Paper Book
A USA Today bestseller! A poignant love story about two teens whose souls come together time and again through the ages--for fans of Nina LaCour and Matt Haig. Evan Taft has plans. Take a gap year in Alaska, make sure his little brother and single mother...
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Mosquitoland
Arnold, David
Paper Book
"Top-notch" --USA Today "Illuminating" --Washington Post "A breath of fresh air" --Entertainment Weekly "Memorable" --People After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in...
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New collected poems
Berry, Wendell
Paper Book
WENDELL BERRY POETRY AT ITS BEST- Discover nearly 200 poems from the Kentucky poet's most popular poetry collections! "A straightforward search for a life connected to the soil, for marriage as a sacrament, and family life." -New York Times Book Review ...
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That distant land : the collected stories
Berry, Wendell
Paper Book
Originally published in 2005,That Distant Land brings together twenty-three stories from the Port William Membership. Arranged in their fictional chronology, the book is not an anthology so much as it is a coherent temporal mapping of this landscape over time, revealing Berry's mastery of...
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The world-ending fire : the essential Wendell Berry
Berry, Wendell
Paper Book
In a time when our relationship to the natural world is ruled by the violence and greed of unbridled consumerism, Wendell Berry speaks out in these prescient essays, drawn from his 50-year campaign on behalf of American lands and communities "Mr. Berry's sentences and stories deliver...
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Every bone a prayer
Blooms, Ashley
Paper Book
"Blooms has taken the voice and names of Appalachia, tended, and evolved them, and created a book that is at once haunting and hopeful."--NPR Praised by BuzzFeed, Good Housekeeping, POPSUGAR, Bustle, and more! Misty's holler looks like any of the thousands of hollers that fork...
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Hillbilly hustle : a novel
Browne, Wesley
Paper Book
Knox Thompson thinks he's working a hustle, but it's a hustle that's working him. Trying to keep his pizza shop and parents afloat, he cleans out a backroom Kentucky poker game only to be roped into dealing marijuana by the proprietor--an arrangement Knox only halfheartedly resists. ...
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Hill women : finding family and a way forward in the Appalachian Mountains
Chambers, Cassie
Paper Book
After rising from poverty to earn two Ivy League degrees, an Appalachian lawyer pays tribute to the strong "hill women" who raised and inspired her, and whose values have the potential to rejuvenate a struggling region. "Destined to be compared to Hillbilly Elegy...
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English lit : poems
Clay, Bernard
Paper Book
Autobiographical poetry from one of Kentucky's rising Affrilachian literary stars. Bernard Clay's autobiographical poetry debut, English Lit, juxtaposes the roots of Black male identity against an urban and rural Kentucky landscape. Hailed as one of the most authentic voices...
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A dark room in Glitter Ball City : murder, secrets, and scandal in Old Louisville
Dominé, David
Paper Book
This true crime saga--with an eccentric Southern backdrop--introduces the reader to the story of a murder in a crumbling Louisville mansion and the decades of secrets and corruption that live within the old house's walls. On June 18, 2010, police discover a body buried in the...
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An Appalachian summer
Gabhart, Ann H.
Paper Book
In 1933 Louisville, Kentucky, even the ongoing economic depression cannot keep Piper Danson's parents from insisting on a debut party. After all, their fortune came through the market crash intact, and they've picked out the perfect suitor for their daughter. Braxton Crandall can give her the kind...
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These healing hills
Gabhart, Ann H.
Paper Book
Francine Howard has her life all mapped out until the soldier she planned to marry at WWII's end writes to tell her he's in love with a woman in England. Devastated, Francine seeks a fresh start in the Appalachian Mountains, training to be a nurse midwife for the Frontier Nursing Service.
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Belonging : a culture of place
hooks, bell
Paper Book
What does it mean to call a place home? Who is allowed to become a member of a community? When can we say that we truly belong? These are some of the questions of place and belonging that renowned cultural critic bell hooks examines in her new book, Belonging: A Culture of Place....
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Clay's quilt : a novel
House, Silas
Paper Book
“A YOUNG WRITER OF IMMENSE GIFTS . . . One of the best books I have ever read about contemporary life in the mountains of southern Appalachia. . . . I could see and feel Free Creek, and the mountain above it.” –LEE SMITH After his mother is killed, four...
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This wretched valley
Kiefer, Jenny
Paper Book
"A hallucinatory nightmare of a novel that blends adventure, horror and historical fiction, and isn't shy about violence or strangeness."--New York Times "If you love wilderness horror, This Wretched Valley is a must-read."--Alma Katsu,...
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Wake the bones
Kilcoyne, Elizabeth
Paper Book
"YA horror has found a new standard-bearer." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Dark, gripping, and gorgeous, Wake the Bones will lead you into the woods and keep you up late. As lush and sweltering as a Kentucky summer... Elizabeth Kilcoyne is a force." -...
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Animal, vegetable, miracle : a year of food life
Kingsolver, Barbara.
Paper Book
At long last, the bestselling author of Small Miracles and The Poisonwood Bible returns with the wise and compelling true story of her family's adventure to reclaim the food they eat America has long been a nation of farmers. But within the past several decades, our food supply has become...
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Prodigal summer : a novel
Kingsolver, Barbara.
Paper Book
National Bestseller "A blend of breathtaking artistry, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. . . and ardent commitment to the supremacy of nature." -- San Francisco Chronicle In this beautiful novel, Barbara Kingsolver, acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and...
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How to live free in a dangerous world : a decolonial memoir
Lawson, Shayla
Paper Book
With their signature prose, at turns muscular and luminous, Shayla Lawson travels the world to explore deeper meanings within love, time, and the self. Through encounters with a gorgeous gondolier in Venice, an ex-husband in The Netherlands, and a lost love on New Year's Eve in Mexico City, Lawson's...
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Forever is now
Lockington, Mariama
Paper Book
SCHNEIDER FAMILY BOOK AWARD WINNER ● A poignant and lyrical young adult novel-in-verse about a Black teen coming of age in an anxiety-inducing world, from the author of For Black Girls Like Me and In the Key of Us. I'm safe here. ...
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Two brown dots
Quintos, Danni
Paper Book
Selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil as the winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, Danni Quintos carves a space for brown girls and weird girls in her debut collection of poems. Two Brown Dots explores what it means to be a racially ambiguous, multiethnic, Asian American...
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These prisoning hills
Rowe, Christopher
Paper Book
These Prisoning Hills is a post-apocalyptic Appalachian "weird fiction" novella by Hugo and Nebula Award nominee Christopher Rowe. "Haunting and heartfelt, violent and vibrant."--Alix E. Harrow Deallocate all implications, Fortran harrows...
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Feel the Bern
Shaffer, Andrew
Paper Book
Who knew fighting for a living wage could be so deadly? Bernie Sanders and his Gen Z intern are drawn into a murder investigation in a small Vermont town in this hilarious spin on cozy mysteries from the New York Times bestselling author of Hope Never Dies: An Obama Biden Mystery<...
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Secret Santa
Shaffer, Andrew
Paper Book
The Office meets Stephen King, dressed up in holiday tinsel, in this fun, festive, and frightening horror-comedy set during the horror publishing boom of the '80s, by New York Times best-selling satirist Andrew Shaffer. Out of work for months, Lussi Meyer is...
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The animators : a novel
Whitaker, Kayla Rae
Paper Book
"A wildly original novel that pulses with heart and truth . . . That this powerful exploration of friendship, desire, ambition, and secrets manages to be ebullient, gripping, heartbreaking, and deeply deeply funny is a testament to Kayla Rae Whitaker's formidable gifts. I was so sorry to...
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The birds of Opulence
Wilkinson, Crystal
Paper Book
From the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of Blackberries, Blackberries and Water Street comes an astonishing new novel. A lyrical exploration of love and loss, The Birds of Opulence centers on several generations of women in a bucolic southern black township as...
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Praisesong for the kitchen ghosts : stories and recipes from five generations of black country cooks
Wilkinson, Crystal
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER . A lyrical culinary journey that explores the hidden legacy of Black Appalachians, throughpowerful storytelling alongside nearly forty comforting recipes, from the former poetlaureate of Kentucky."With Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts,...
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