By Kentucky Authors

Playing Books & Bites Bingo? Try these suggestions for the prompt, a book by a Kentucky author.

Updated July 18, 2024
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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...
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...
New collected poems
Berry, Wendell
Paper Book
Here, Wendell Berry revisits for the first time his immensely popularCollected Poems, whichThe New York Times Book Review described as "a straightforward search for a life connected to the soil, for marriage as a sacrament, and family life" and "[returns] American poetry to a...
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...
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...
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...
Where I can't follow : a novel
Blooms, Ashley
Paper Book
"Haunting and hopeful...a magic so vivid it feels more like a memory than a work of fiction."--Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Once and Future Witches NAMED A MOST-ANTICIPATED BOOK BY Good Housekeeping, Gizmodo, Den of Geek, Tor.com, and more! Walk through...
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. ...
Hill women : finding family and a way forward in the Appalachian Mountains
Chambers, Cassie
Paper Book
"Nestled in the Appalachian mountains, Owsley County is one of the poorest counties in both Kentucky and the country. Buildings are crumbling and fields sit vacant, as tobacco farming and coal mining decline. But strong women are finding creative ways to subsist in their hollers in the hills. Cassie...
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...
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...
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...
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.
Appalachian elegy : poetry and place
hooks, bell
Paper Book
Author, activist, feminist, teacher, and artist bell hooks is celebrated as one of the nation's leading intellectuals. Born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, hooks drew her unique pseudonym from the name of her grandmother, an intelligent and strong-willed African American woman who inspired her to...
Belonging : a culture of place
hooks, bell
Ebook
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....
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...
Something's rising : Appalachians fighting mountaintop removal
House, Silas
Paper Book
Like an old-fashioned hymn sung in rounds, Something's Rising gives a stirring voice to the lives, culture, and determination of the people fighting the destructive practice of mountaintop removal in the coalfields of central Appalachia. Each person's story, unique and unfiltered, articulates the...
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,...
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." -...
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...
Prodigal summer : a novel
Kingsolver, Barbara.
Other
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, New York Times bestselling author of Demon...
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...
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. ...
Just a few miles South : timeless recipes from our favorite places
Michel, Ouita
Paper Book
For twenty years, diners in the Bluegrass have been able to satisfy their cravings for Ouita Michel's sustainable, farm-to-table cuisine at her many acclaimed restaurants. Each restaurant--from Wallace Station to Holly Hill Inn--features dishes that combine Kentucky's bounty with Michel's...
Restoring Shakertown : the struggle to save the historic Shaker village of Pleasant Hill
Parrish, Thomas
Paper Book
Mother Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, articulated a vision of a community that embraced sacrifice over the needs of the individual; the result was one of the most successful utopian experiments of nineteenth-century America. The Shakers, an idealistic offshoot of the ascetic Quaker religion,...
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...
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<...
Secret Santa
Shaffer, Andrew
Paper Book
The Officemeets 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...
River of earth
Still, James
Paper Book
First published in 1940, James Still's masterful novel has become a classic. It is the story, seen through the eyes of a boy, of three years in the life of his family and their kin. He sees his parents pulled between the meager farm with its sense of independence and the mining camp with its...
The Animators A Novel
Whitaker, Kayla Rae.
Audiobook
"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...
The Birds of Opulence
Wilkinson, Crystal
Ebook
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...
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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