BJ’s Standout Reads July 2020
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson 320 pages. Cussy is a mobile librarian in the Applachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky in 1936. It’s a time when this part of the country is still reeling from the Great Depression. While she faces extreme poverty on a daily basis she also faces discrimination as she has a genetic abnormality that has caused her skin to turn blue. The story follows her on her route to her stops to different houses in her town where she gets to know her patrons while trying to eek out a living as a librarian who brings books to their homes on the back of a mule. It’s based on true events—there actually was a family living there with blue skin, and there actually were mobile librarians wandering the hills bringing books to homes and reading to those who couldn’t read. Historically interesting.
My Friend Anna by Rachel DeLoache Williams 288 pages Whoah. This one is the memoir of a friend of Anna Delvey. If you remember Anna Delvey was recently in the news for getting busted for fraud. She posed as a German heiress and lived the life of a socialite in New York City. She stayed in the finest hotels and rarely paid. It all came crashing down when Anna invited Rachel and a few others to vacation with her in Marakesh. When Anna’s credit card didn’t work Rachel footed the bill for tens of thousands of dollars. She strung along Rachel for months with promises of repayment, and never paid. That was when Anna’s ruse came crashing down, and Rachel was the key in unraveling Anna’s complicated web of deception. I was obsessed with this one.
BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.
added on 08.10.20