With Radio Bristol Book Club, the Birthplace of Country Music and the Bristol Public Library come together each month to celebrate and explore the wonderful world of literature. The show airs the 4th Thursday of every month at 12 p.m., and the books on our reading list focus on museum content, music heritage, and Appalachian culture and stories. Your hosts Dr. Rene Rodgers, Erika Barker, or Tonia Kestner, along with volunteer readers, will dig deep into the feelings and questions raised by one selected book each month, often followed by an interview with the author.
Check out the Radio Bristol Book Club list for 2025 and read along with us each month! And if you’d like to share your thoughts or questions about the book, you can email us at info@birthplaceofcountrymusic.org (Subject line: Radio Bristol Book Club) and we’ll include them in our on-air discussion.
January 23, 2025
Appalachian Elegy by bell hooks
February 27, 2025
This Book is Free and Yours to Keep: Notes from the Appalachian Prison Book Project by West Virginia University Press
March 27, 2025
Lies on the Serpent’s Tongue by Kate Pearsall
April 24, 2025
Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo’s Hidden History by Kristina Gaddy
May 22, 2025
Hawk’s Done Gone by Mildred Haun
June 26, 2025
Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens by Hazel Dickens and Bill C. Malone
July 24, 2025
The Middle of Somewhere by Suzanne Stryk
August 28, 2025
Refuge by Dot Jackson
September 25, 2025
The Martha Odyssey by Bonny Gable
October 23, 2025
Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane by Dan Gutstein
November 20, 2025
My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future by Alice Randall
December 18, 2025
Fairy Tales of Appalachia by Staci Sivinski