On December 12, Terry Kay died at the age of 82 of liver cancer. He was born the 11th of 12 children on a northeast Georgia farm with no electricity. The quarterback of his high school football team, he married Tommie Duncan, the head cheerleader in 1959. Three of his almost twenty widely read books became movies, To Dance with the White Dog, The Valley of Light, and The Runaway. He was widely known and loved as a great listener and encourager, especially of prospective writers. At the time of his death, he was living in Athens, Georgia, and survived by his wife, Tommie; four children; ten grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
Dolly Parton, Songteller by Dolly Parton and Robert K. Oermann debuted at #3 on December 6th the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction bestseller list and stayed on the list all month. It retained its #3 spot on the December 13 list, fell to 6th place on the December 20th list, and to #15 on the December 27 list.
Number 2 in Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Books of 2020 is Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi. It is also one of Teen Vogue’s 10 Best Books of 2020 You Should Be Reading Right Now.
NPR has released their Favorite Books of 2020. Included are Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, You Want More by George Singleton, Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, and Shiner by Amy Jo Burns.
Book Riot’s list of 50 Best Books of 2020 includes Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle and Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi.
Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies that Delivered the Opioid Epidemic by Eric Eyre and She Come By It Natural : Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs by Sarah Smarch made Literary Hub’s list of the 65 Favorite Books of the Year, 2020.
Deep South Magazine’s Fall/Winter Reading List 2020-21 includes The Madwoman of Preacher’s Cove by Joy Ross Davis, Mountain Laurel by Lori Benton, Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, and You Want More: Selected Stories by George Singleton,
Kentucky Humanities has selected The Birds of Opulence by Crystal Wilkinson as their 2021 Kentucky Reads selection. For $50, Kentucky Humanities will supply a civic group or library or book club or church with 15 copies of The Birds of Opulence and publicity materials and pay one of their six discussion leaders to come to your group to discuss the novel.