It’s summertime, and the readin’s easy

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Arts & Culture

With spring officially underway, daydreams have started to turn toward all the activities that warm weather brings: cookouts, fireworks, family road trips, and long, luxurious nights out with friends. I personally am crossing my fingers that the pollen gods are merciful this year (helllooooo, Kentucky allergies!), as a favorite summer tradition of mine involves taking a book to the University of Kentucky Arboretum, cozying up to some unsuspecting tree and tuning the rest of the world out for a few hours.

Summer reading often brings to mind easily digestible page-turners, which by autumn may very well end up in the “to donate” pile. While there’s nothing like a good, fast read while lazing around the pool or in transit on a plane, for this summer, I am pleased to offer a selection of books from Kentucky-rooted authors that will certainly keep the pages turning but that also offer the kind of quality that will assuredly have you returning to them well beyond the summer months.

8 recommended summer reads by Kentucky-rooted authors

Hemisphere

by Ellen Hagan

Affrilachian poet Ellen Hagan’s new autobiographical collection explores lineage and the psychological ramifications of looming motherhood. Hagan’s voice is unflinching as she navigates the terrain of a woman’s body as it evolves over a lifetime, surviving everything from the spectrum of seen and unseen scars from abuse to childbirth to the relentless tread of aging. Exploring the notion of what it means to heal and become whole, this collection reads as something of a pilgrimage.

No Rehearsal: A Memoir

by Brenda Bartella Peterson

Brenda Peterson has lived a fascinating life. Currently an inspirational speaker, Peterson has worn several career hats, including stints in corporate, non-profit and religious sectors. Seven years after her son’s death, Peterson decided it was time to put her pen to work. “No Rehearsal” explores universal themes of loss and reconciliation through recounts of her life such as performing the service to bury her “raggedy-ass father.” The result is a candid yet uplifting memoir, despite the gravitas of the content.

Fanny Says: A Biography in Poems

by Nickole Brown

I was in a workshop at the Kentucky Women Writers Conference one year when I first heard Nickole Brown read a first draft of a “Fanny” poem. Everyone in the workshop cackled and marveled at the woman Brown described, with “hair teased to Jesus” and the vocabulary of a sailor, she was so very unlike any granny we’d ever heard of. Set against the backdrop of the South, his collection grapples with themes of poverty, racism, and domestic violence.

Wildcat Memories: Inside Stories from Kentucky Basketball Greats

by Doug Brunk

Doug Brunk spent what he calls his formative years in Wilmore, Kentucky, from 1973 to 1978, and like so many, became an avid follower of the University of Kentucky men’s basketball program. Having interviewed former coaches and players, including Coach Joe B. Hall, Jack Givens, Kyle Macy, and Rick Robey, Brunk explores the meta-narrative of the Wildcats’ shared history – not only through the game, but through people who made a serious impact on their time representing UK.

Ghosting

by Kirby Gann

When Fleece Skaggs disappears along with a local drug-kingpin’s marijuana crop, his younger brother, James Cole, is thrust into the underbelly of his community, fraught with a quest for the kind of truth that could literally cost lives. Touted as a “genre-subverting” literary mystery, Kirby Gann’s critically acclaimed Appalachian gothic takes the reader on a thrilling quest via multiple lenses of extraordinary characters. Fearlessly crafted, this novel is a cross-section among family secrets, addiction, violence and Kentucky’s criminal underworld.

Saint Monkey

by Jacinda Townsend

The celebrated first novel by Jacinda Townsend is a cinematic coming-of-age story that spans from Kentucky to New York City in the segregated 1950s. Revolving around two best friends, Caroline and Audrey, who grow up in the African-American community of Mt. Sterling, Townsend’s novel follows the girls as their lives take off in two complete different directions. Audrey, a musical prodigy, escapes to the lights, glitz and pace of Harlem while Caroline remains at home to care for her family in a rural and impoverished town. Townsend’s lyrical prose and deft narration make for a breathtaking, sensuous read.

Fallout

by Gwenda Bond

Few Kentucky-based authors are garnering national attention at the pace of Gwenda Bond, whose young adult novel released just last year, “Girl on a Wire,” has been met with notable reception. Now “Fallout,” the story of a teenage Lois Lane, comes as a much-anticipated follow-up that packs quite the girl-power punch. Lois Lane has just moved to the city of Metropolis and started a new high school. Before long, she becomes ensnared in the mystery of a group of mean girls who are out to make life unbearable for another girl at school through an immersive video game. A fast-paced narrative, Bond provides a seriously inventive and ample backstory for one of geekdom’s favorite female characters.

Smart Butt: Scenes from a Bold-Faced Life (starring Earlene)

by Erin Fitzgerald

Erin Fitzgerald’s middle school-age novel, “Smart Butt,” is a story of multifaceted relationships and an unstable family. Earlene, age 12, has a lot going on at home. Her mother is in recovery and her father is in jail. Burdened with quite a bit of responsibility for her age, Earlene seeks distraction in her neighborhood and at school, but sometimes those places bring more questions than answers. With the help of some unexpected lessons and a homeless dog named Tripod, Earlene starts to sort out complex feelings about herself, her family and her place in the world. Fitzgerald’s novel is also currently being adapted into a short play to be performed for schools and community groups.

Share your “Shelfie” and contribute to the Carnegie Center’s Ultimate Summer Reading List!

Rather than the “ultimate playlist,” the Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning is looking to create the ultimate summer reading list. To join the conversation, share a photo of yourself with the book you are most looking forward to reading this summer on social media, using #carnegieshelfie!

Bianca Spriggs serves as the literary liaison for the Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning, where she writes the blog “The Red Door Writers Blog.” If you happen across a good book this summer that is either about Kentucky or by a Kentucky-related author, you may serve as a prime candidate to be a guest contributor on the blog. Email Bianca@carnegiecenterlex.org to let her know what you’re reading these days. ss

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