4 book picks from Tyler Childers’ new Hickman Holler Reading Club

Country singer-songwriter Tyler Childers is turning up the volume—on reading. In addition to promoting his new album, Snipe Hunter, Tyler’s also shining a spotlight on public libraries and his lifelong love of books with the launch of the Hickman Holler Reading Club, in partnership with the Libby app. Featuring handpicked book recommendations straight from Tyler’s own shelf, the reading club is a celebration of music and reading, inspired by his Appalachian roots and love of storytelling.

And he’s not stopping there—a literacy advocate and supporter of libraries, Tyler is bringing the public library along on his 2025 tour! Kicking off on Sept. 22 in Charlottesville, VA, concert go-ers can visit the booth to learn more about their local library’s resources (possibly even sign up for a library card!), check out book displays, and enter for a chance to win a book signed by Tyler.

Tyler’s favorite books

Growing up in a coal-mining town in rural Kentucky, Tyler’s early experiences helped to shape both his sound and his reading list. His personal picks reflect his working-class roots, the wilderness, and the spirit of Appalachia.

Find his reading club selections in the Libby app from your library and start reading today!

On the Road by Jack Kerouac
🎧 Audiobook

Inspired by Jack Kerouac’s adventures with Neal Cassady, this book tells the story of two friends whose cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naïveté and wild abandon and imbued with Kerouac’s love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, this is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope—a book that changed American literature and changed anyone who has ever picked it up.

Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
🎧 Audiobook

A bitter strike is raging in a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers: Henry, the fiercely vital and overpowering patriarch; Hank, the son who has spent his life trying to live up to his father; and Viv, who fell in love with Hank’s exuberant machismo but now finds it wearing thin. And then there is Leland, Henry’s bookish younger son, who returns to his family on a mission of vengeance—and finds himself fulfilling it in ways he never imagined. Out of the Stamper family’s rivalries and betrayals, Ken Kesey crafted a novel with the mythic impact of Greek tragedy.

River of Earth by James Still

This is the story, seen through the eyes of a boy, of three years in the life of his family and their kin. He sees his parents pulled between the meager farm with its sense of independence and the mining camp with its uncertain promise of material prosperity. In his world privation, violence, and death are part of everyday life, accepted and endured. Yet it is a world of dignity, love, and humor, of natural beauty which Still evokes in sharp, poetic images. No writer has caught more effectively the vividness of mountain speech or shown more honestly the trials and joys of mountain life.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
🎧 Audiobook

Journey to the dusty little town of Lonesome Dove, where retired Texas Rangers Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call undertake a perilous cattle drive to the untamed plains of Montana. Along the way, they face danger, adventure, and an unforgettable cast of characters. Richly authentic and beautifully written, Lonesome Dove is a story of love, loss, and the unyielding spirit of the American West.

This edition includes a new foreword by Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan.

*Title availability may vary.

Whether you're a longtime fan or just discovering Tyler’s music, the Hickman Holler Reading Club is your backstage pass to the stories that shaped the artist.

Celebrate the stories, support your local library, and borrow now on the Libby app.