When Kentucky native Joe Ashby Porter published Touch Wood in 2002, Publishers Weekly described the book as "a challenging but constantly entertaining read" while Booklist praised the author's "keen sense of the unusual and ironic in the everyday." Touch Wood--a collection of 10 intriguing, idiosyncratic short stories--will be the focus when bookclub@ket convenes in February.

The discussion of Touch Wood, led by bookclub@ket host Bill Goodman, premieres Saturday, Feb. 10 at 3:30/2:30 p.m. CT and Sunday, Feb. 11 at 11:30/10:30 p.m. CT on KET1 and Tuesday, Feb. 13 at 4:30/3:30 p.m. CT on KET2.

In Touch Wood, Porter creates a world that is alternately funny, startling and intense. From "The Man Who Wanted to Buy a Cat," an amusing account of a man's obsessive desire for his neighbor's pet, to the title story, "Touch Wood," which traces the influence of a fictional story on fictional lives, these tales--couched in language at once beautiful and strange--charm the reader with their improbable blend of realism and fantasy.

Touch Wood is Porter's fifth work of fiction. His first short story collection, The Kentucky Stories, was nominated for a Pulitzer; his other books include Lithuania: Short Stories and the novels Eelgrass and Resident Aliens. The son of a Madisonville coal miner, Porter attended Harvard and Berkeley and studied at Oxford as a Fulbright Scholar. In his other life--as Professor Joseph A. Porter--he is a widely published Shakespearean scholar who serves as the associate chair of English at Duke University. To learn more about Porter and Touch Wood, readers can visit the bookclub@ket Web site, www.ket.org/bookclub/.

bookclub@ket is a KET production. The executive producer is Nancy Carpenter, and the producer/director is Tom Bickel.