Appalachian Reads Book Discussion Group

Appalachian Reads is a new book discussion group sponsored by Blount County Public Library. Participants will meet every two months on a Saturday morning at 10:30-11:30 in Dorothy Herron Room A. Sessions begin July 15, 2017 and run through May 2018.

The library will have four print copies of all titles plus R.E.A.D.S. access. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact Reference Librarian Brennan LeQuire at 865-982-0981, ext. 302.

From the Library’s Press Release:

This month’s book is by East Tennessee native Amy Greene, author of the New York Times bestseller Bloodroot.

Long Man, released in 2014, is set in the fictional rural town of Yuneetah, Tennessee, in 1936. As family farms are about to be flooded by TVA, one mother risks the peace and safety of her family when she adamantly refuses to be relocated. The reappearance of the town derelict and the mysterious disappearance of a little girl bring the community together in a desperate search during the fleeting hours before the floodgates change the course of their lives forever.

Greene was born in Morristown, TN, and grew up in Whitesburg, TN, among the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. In 2010, she received the Weatherford Award for Fiction from Berea College. For her second novel, “Long Man,” she won several awards in 2014:  the Willie Morris Award for Southern Literature, the “Washington Post” Top Book of 2014 and it was named one of the “Minneapolis Star Tribune’s” 10 Favorite Books of 2014.   

Cynthia Spitler, the session facilitator, grew up between Cherokee and Douglas Lakes, an area greatly changed by TVA’s mid-twentieth century projects which brought jobs and electricity to many, but loss and displacement to others.  

Currently residing in Maryville, Spitler works in Public Relations at the Blount County Public Library (BCPL) and as an adjunct instructor of English at Maryville College. A contributing author to the inaugural edition of the BCPL Foothills Anthology, “Foothills Voices,” Spitler enjoys reading and writing, in both her professional and personal life; bicycling, especially in Cades Cove; flying with her husband; and celebrating daily life with her four children.

Open to the public, Southern Appalachian Studies programs are sponsored and hosted by Blount County Public Library with the support of Blount County Friends of the Library.