Kathleen Holt
Coordinator, HPPR Radio Readers Book ClubKathleen Holt has served High Plains Public Radio—in one way or another—since its inception in 1979. Currently “quasi-retired,” she volunteers as Coordinator of the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club. As a former HPPR staff member, Holt worked with a board committee to establish Legacy and Endowed Funds to provide for public radio into the future. Holt’s community development projects have upgraded the signals for many of HPPR’s translators, including KCSE (Prowers County, Colorado) and KONQ established with a partnership with Dodge City Community College to bring full time public radio to the area. “The thing I love best about the book club is re-connecting with many HPPR supporters across the High Plains, while also meeting new public radio friends across the five-state region," Holt says. "It’s not only about friends, but those friends are readers ready to explore the issues we all face living and working in our region.”
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“We have loved each other well, dear Willie, but now, for reasons we cannot understand, that bond has been broken. But our bond can never be broken. As long as I live, you will always be with me, child.” ― George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo -
From the epic grief of ancient Greek tragedies to the intimate portrayals in contemporary memoirs, literature offers a rich tapestry of loss and mourning. These stories not only reflect our own experiences with grief but also offer insights into the diverse ways that individuals cope with loss. -
Admittedly, one of the main reasons I read is to expand my world, to understand the lives and perspectives of others – of those younger, of those with the wisdom that comes with age, of those who grew up in circumstances different from mine or spoke the languages of cultures different from my rural, midwestern family’s. I’m Kathleen Holt preparing to talk about grief, which I, like all of us, have experienced many times.
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On Sunday, May 4, 2025, book leaders and contributors from the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club came together in Garden City, KS, for a two-hour, live on-air discussion of the novel, a travelogue, a memoir, and a comic blog explored with an impressive array of Radio Reader BookBytes this season. -
I was somewhat filled with trepidation when we selected Humor Me! as the theme for the 2025 Spring Read. Perhaps it was a career working with troubled kids and families or maybe I am “just one of those people” but I find my personal humor somewhat dark.
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Hello High Plains listeners.This is Stella for HPPR’s radio reader book club.I recently read Allie Brosch’s graphic novel, Hyperbole and a Half which is the fourth book included in our spring read. -
We started with the Puritans, traveled the 1950s, visited the New Yorker and now we’ll explore blogger and web-comic creator Allie Brosh in a graphic novel. Bill Gates, said, “I love her approach—looking, listening, and describing with the observational skills of a scientist, the creativity of an artist, and the wit of a comedian.” -
This memoir written by longtime New Yorker staff cartoonist is sprinkled with David Sipress’ cartoons. This third work of the series carries us into the age of JFK and Sputnik. -
When I first learned that we’d be reading Bryson’s Lost Continent, I was particularly excited having been aware of his popularity yet not having read his work. I’m Kathleen Holt in Cimarron – a small southwest Kansas in which I grew up and from which I took numerous family vacations during the 1950s. -
Some journeys take us across physical landscapes and others, across internal ones. The Lost Continent details author Bill Bryson’s self-proclaimed “journey of discovery.” Following his father’s death, Bryson returns to the United States from England and travels almost 14,000 miles across the country in search of the elements for the quintessential American town.
