2017 Spokane is Reading book is A Land More Kind Than Home

With the summer months stretching ahead, and hopefully plenty of time for beach or backyard reading, bookworms of all stripes are already working on their extensive summer reading lists. Here's another title to add to the mix, this year's Spokane is Reading selection, A Land More Kind Than Home, by Wiley Cash.

Published in 2012 as Cash's debut, the bestselling title is narrated by three main characters living in rural Appalachia. On its website, Spokane is Reading describes the book as "a haunting tale of courage in the face of cruelty and the power of love to overcome the darkness that lives in us all."

In a review by the Washington Post, the novel is described as a harrowing tale about the a community whose main moral compass is a fundamentalist church leader who uses his congregation's blind faith as a weapon against them.

Spokane author Jess Walter has said of the book: “Wiley Cash knows how to grab his reader on page one and hang on for dear life as he presents brilliant portraits of desperate people caught up in an underworld where danger, damage, drugs, and fractured families are all clasped in the tight fist of poverty.”

Though not sequels, Cash's bestselling second novel This Dark Road to Mercy has a somewhat similar tone,  examining the limits of love, family bonds, atonement and vengeance. His third novel, The Last Ballad, comes out about a month before Cash's visit to Spokane for two community events on Thursday, Nov. 9.

The 16th annual Spokane is Reading community reading event, sponsored and organized by the Spokane Public Library, the Spokane County Library District and Auntie's Bookstore, includes two free readings and talks with Cash, in Spokane Valley and downtown Spokane. Leading up to the November event, the community can engage with Cash's works through book discussions and other programming at Spokane libraries and Auntie's.