Appalachian Reads is a book discussion group sponsored by Blount County Public Library. Participants meet on the third Saturday of every other month from 10:30-11:30 a.m. in Dorothy Herron Room A. The first year of Appalachian Reads began July 15, 2017 and ran through May 19, 2018. Building on success, the group began its second year on July 21, 2018, and continues to meet for bi-monthly discussions.
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.
| Date | Book | Facilitator |
|---|---|---|
| July 20 | Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam | David Sincerbox |
| Sept 21 | Prayers the Devil Answers by Sharyn McCrumb | Jim Stovall |
| November 16 | The Tall Woman by Wilma Dykeman | Jan Taylor |
| January 18 | Cataloochee by Wayne Caldwell | Jennifer Voorhis |
| March 21 | TBA | – |
| May 16 | TBA | – |
Discuss Cataloochee by Wayne Caldwell on Saturday, December 11, 2019 at 10:30 a.m. in Dorothy Herron Room A.
Wayne Caldwell is a native of Asheville, North Carolina. He began writing fiction when he turned fifty. Winner of two short story prizes, the 2010 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award from the Western North Carolina Historical Association, and the 2013 James Still Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, he is the author of two novels—Cataloochee (2007) and Requiem by Fire (2010). He also contributed to Naked Came the Leaf Peeper (Burning Bush Press, 2011), a collaborative novel by a dozen North Carolina writers. Visit his website at www.waynecaldwell.com.
Discussion will be led by Jennifer Voorhis.
From the book description at Amazon:
Nestled in the mountains of North Carolina sits Cataloochee. In a time when “where you was born was where God wanted you,” the Wrights and the Carters, both farming families, travel to the valley to escape the rapid growth of neighboring towns and to have a few hundred acres all to themselves. But progress eventually winds its way to Cataloochee, too, and year after year the population swells as more people come to the valley to stake their fortune.
Never one to pass on opportunity, Ezra Banks, an ambitious young man seeking some land of his own, arrives in Cataloochee in the 1880s. His first order of business is to marry a Carter girl, Hannah, the daughter of the valley’s largest landowner. From there Ezra’s brood grows, as do those of the Carters and the Wrights. With hard work and determination, the burgeoning community transforms wilderness into home, to be passed on through generations.
But the idyll is not to last, nor to be inherited: The government takes steps to relocate folks to make room for the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and tragedy will touch one of the clans in a single, unimaginable act.
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.
