Kentucky Reads: The Book Woman's Daughter

The Calloway County Public Library will host a Kentucky Reads discussion of Kim Michele Richardson’s The Book Woman’s Daughter on Sunday, September 24, 2:00 PM, at the Calloway County Public Library, 710 Main Street, Murray, KY.

Constance Alexander, award-winning author, poet, and scholar, will facilitate the discussion.

Copies of the novel, which were provided by the Kentucky Humanities, are now available for checkout from the Calloway County Public Library. The book is also available to borrow in ebook and audiobook formats from CCPL’s Kentucky Libraries Unbound, and in ebook from Hoopla Digital.

The Book Woman’s Daughter follows Honey Lovett, the daughter of the beloved Troublesome book woman, who must fight for her own independence with the help of the women who guide her and the books that set her free.

The publisher writes, “In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good.

Picking up her mother's old packhorse library route, Honey begins to deliver books to the remote hollers of Appalachia. Honey is looking to prove that she doesn't need anyone telling her how to survive. But the route can be treacherous, and some folks aren't as keen to let a woman pave her own way.

If Honey wants to bring the freedom books provide to the families who need it most, she's going to have to fight for her place, and along the way, learn that the extraordinary women who run the hills and hollers can make all the difference in the world.”

Kim Michele Richardson is a New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today bestselling author of five works of historical fiction, and a bestselling memoir.

Her critically acclaimed novel, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a recommended read by Dolly Parton and has earned a 2020 PBS Readers Choice, 2019 LibraryReads Best Book, Indie Next, SIBA, Forbes Best Historical Novel, 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 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 and has been adopted as a Common Read selection by states, cities, and colleges across the country and abroad.

Her latest novel, The Book Woman’s Daughter, an instant New York Times and USA Today bestseller is both a stand-alone and sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Kim Michele lives with her family in Kentucky and is the founder of Shy Rabbit.

Kentucky Humanities’ first edition of Kentucky Reads, in 2018, featured Kentucky native Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel: All the King’s Men to guide statewide conversations on contemporary populism, political discourse, and their relationship to journalism.

Kentucky Humanities is a non-profit Kentucky corporation affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities. For information about Kentucky Humanities’ programs and services, including Kentucky Reads