Books Set in or about Appalachia

Playing Books and Bites Bingo? Here are some suggestions for the Books Set in or about Appalachia square.

Updated January 13, 2023
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The giver of stars
Moyes, Jojo
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER |  A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK   "A great narrative about personal strength and really captures how books bring communities together." --Reese Witherspoon   From the author of the forthcoming Someone Else's...
Demon Copperhead : a novel
Kingsolver, Barbara
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION New York Times Readers' Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century * An Oprah's Book Club Selection * An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller * A #1 Washington Post...
In the shadow of the valley : a memoir
Conn, Bobi
Paper Book
A clear-eyed and compassionate memoir of the Appalachian experience by a woman who embraced its astonishing beauty, narrowly escaped its violence, and struggles to call it home. Bobi Conn was raised in a remote Kentucky holler in 1980s Appalachia. She remembers her tin-roofed house...
Where all light tends to go
Joy, David
Paper Book
The area surrounding Cashiers, North Carolina, is home to people of all kinds, but the world that Jacob McNeely lives in is crueller than most. His father runs a methodically organised meth ring, with local authorities on the dime to turn a blind eye to his dealings. Having dropped out of high...
The weight of this world
Joy, David
Paper Book
A combat veteran returned from war, Thad Broom can't leave the hardened world of Afghanistan behind, nor can he forgive himself for what he saw there. His mother, April, is haunted by her own demons, a secret trauma she has carried for years. Between them is Aiden McCall, loyal to both but unable to...
Blacktop wasteland
Cosby, S. A.
Paper Book
A New York Times Notable Books of 2020 Like Ocean's Eleven meets Drive, with a Southern noir twist, S. A. Cosby's Blacktop Wasteland is a searing, operatic story of a man pushed to his limits by poverty, race, and his own former life of crime....
Child of God
McCarthy, Cormac
Paper Book
From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road * In this taut, chilling story,Lester Ballard--a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape--haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail. ...
Revelator
Gregory, Daryl
Paper Book
ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * The dark, gripping tale of a 1930's family in the remote hills of the Smoky Mountains, their secret religion, and the daughter who turns her back on their mysterious god--from the acclaimed author of Spoonbenders. ...
The book woman of Troublesome Creek : a novel
Richardson, Kim Michele,
Paper Book
RECOMMENDED BY DOLLY PARTON IN PEOPLE MAGAZINE! A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A USA TODAY BESTSELLER A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER A PBS BOOK PICK The bestselling historical fiction novel from Kim Michele Richardson, this is a novel following Cussy...
Death in Mud Lick : a coal country fight against the drug companies that delivered the opioid epidemic
Eyre, Eric
Paper Book
A New York Times Critics' Top Ten Book of the Year * 2021 Edgar Award Winner Best Fact Crime * A Lit Hub Best Book of The Year From a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at the Charleston Gazette-Mail, a "powerful," (The New York Times) urgent,...
Brother : a novel
Ahlborn, Ania.
Paper Book
From the bestselling horror author of Within These Walls and The Bird Eater comes a terrifying novel that follows a teenager determined to break from his family's unconventional--and deeply disturbing--traditions. Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked...
Outer dark
McCarthy, Cormac
Paper Book
From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road * A novel at once fabular and starkly evocative, set is an unspecified place in Appalachia, sometime around the turn of the century. A woman bears her brother's child,...
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...
The twisted ones
Kingfisher, T.
Paper Book
Winner of the RUSA Award for Best Horror When a young woman clears out her deceased grandmother's home in rural North Carolina, she finds long-hidden secrets about a strange colony of beings in the woods in this chilling novel that reads like The Blair Witch Project...
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...
All this marvelous potential : Robert Kennedy's 1968 tour of Appalachia
Algeo, Matthew
Paper Book
"A powerful story, skillfully told." --Booklist  A new portrait of Robert Kennedy, a politician who, for all his faults, had the uncommon courage to stand up to a president from his own party and shine a light on America's shortcomings ...
These silent woods : a novel
Grant, Kimi Cunningham
Paper Book
A father and daughter living in the remote Appalachian mountains must reckon with the ghosts of their past in Kimi Cunningham Grant's These Silent Woods, a mesmerizing novel of suspense. No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For...
Rednecks
Brown, Taylor
Paper Book
An NPR Best Book of 2024 An Atlanta Journal-Constitution Best Southern Book of 2024 Southern Book Prize Fiction Finalist A historical drama based on the Battle of Blair Mountain, pitting a multi-ethnic army of 10,000 coal miners against mine owners...

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