​​Upcoming Books:
June 23 @ Anne
Broken Heart of America  - Walter Johnson
July 15 @ Kathy
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek  - Kim Michele Richardson
September 16 @Maitand
Middlemarch - George Eliot
October 21 @Carol
The Mysteries - Marisa Silver
Nov/Dec @Toni
TBD

Author Bio: 

The NEW YORK TIMES, LOS ANGELES TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling author, Kim Michele Richardson is an multiple-award author and has written four works of historical fiction, and a bestselling memoir, The Unbreakable Child. Her latest multi-award winning novel, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek has earned a 2019 Library Reads Best Book, Indie Next, SIBA, Forbes Best Historical Novel, 2020 PBS Readers Choice, Book-A-Million Best Fiction, and is an Oprah's Buzziest Books pick and a Women’s National Book Association Great Group Reads selection. It was inspired by the real life, remarkable "blue people" of Kentucky, and the fierce, brave Packhorse Librarians who used the power of literacy to overcome bigotry, and fear during the Great Depression. The novel is taught widely in high schools and college classrooms. Her forthcoming fifth novel, a stand-alone and sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek will be published May 7, 2022. Kim Michele lives with her family in Kentucky and is the founder of Shy Rabbit.
Source: Kim Michele Richardson 
Book Review:
 “A 'laugh out loud' passage recounts the feelings of a dad who wants to keep “the book woman” and her books away from his house because books are making his family lazy:John went on, “The young’uns won’t do their chores, and yesterday, Martha Hannah was nearly an hour late with my supper. An Hour! Them books are doing that–surely making them lazy. The girls are letting the laundry an’ sewing pile up around their ears, and the boys are reading at the creek when they ought to be fishing and working the garden. Plumb can’t get ’em to work ’cause they’s so busy sitting and reading them foolish books you’re bent on bringing. And I can’t have it. Won’t have it.”
Will Cussy be able to change his mind about books and reading?"
​Reading Ladies Book Club 
August 16, 2019

 Book Stack - on the blog

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Read BExtraordinaire Blog for book recommendations, reviews, and other book club updates. ​​
is reading The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek  by Kim Michele Richardson for July Book Club.​

Richardson's book The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek combines two interesting events in history, the Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project and the blue-skinned people of Kentucky into one incredible story. Richardson writes,  "There was such rich, magnificent history in the two, I was surprised I hadn't seen them in a novel, that neither had been given a footprint in literary history."

The novel takes place in hills and hollers of Kentucky during the 1930's Depression. The opening chapter introduces us to a librarian and her mule who come upon an alarming spectacle on the path that startles her and her mule. She finds a dead woman swaying from tree with a rope tied around her neck. She hears cries and discovers in the dirt, a baby. "The librarian gawks at the striking blue flesh and cupped a hand over her mouth."
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Cussy Mary Carter, a traveling librarian with the Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project and one of the last of the true blue-skinned people of Kentucky is the main character of this powerful novel which touches on rural isolation, poverty, prejudice, literacy, survival and hope. 
Pack Horse Librarianscreated by Katelyn Martens, Casey Ince, Holly Storck-Post
SLIS Storytelling, May 9, 2013
This video about the novel made me smile. 
Kentucky's Pack Horse Librarians Make for Fascinating ReadingNov 27, 2019
Middle Georgia Regional Library 

Author Quotes: 
“One of the greatest joys is having access to books, and the freedom to read any book of your choosing. I was raised in a rural Kentucky orphanage for my first ten years. On rare occasions, a tattered children’s book would make its way into our dormitories. A rarity, and a gift, I didn’t take for granted. To be able to be transported beyond the ugly, dull institution’s walls to a magical place was joy. I was enthralled over the influence of the written word, the empowerment of literacy, and where a single book could lead you.”
― Kim Michele Richardson , Reading Group Choices Interview with Kim Michele Richardson
February 01, 2020 Author Interviews, Bookmark
​Author Kim Michele Richardson talks about her novel The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, inspired by the true story of the Pack Horse Librarians in Kentucky.
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