Community Reading Program

This is the last installment of the suggested One Read titles. The reading panel will soon be put work contemplating the more than 100 titles that were suggested through the month of November. You can click here to find the other titles that have been highlighted this month. You can also find previous One Read titles here.

“Dark Matter” by Blake Crouch is about a physics professor living in Chicago with his wife and son. He’s kidnapped at gun point one night and taken to an industrial warehouse where he’s knocked unconscious. When he wakes up he’s strapped to a gurney and the people around him are in hazmat suits. He manages to escape but although everything is familiar nothing is right. The nominator said, “Everyone needs an escape from the pre-dystopian nightmare that is our current society, and this is a good one.” It’s a truly edge of your seat mystery, sci-fi, psycho-thriller with a bit of romance thrown in.

This is one of the last suggested titles we are highlighting for One Read 2019. In January the reading panel will start narrowing down the list.

Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. The pilots themselves were hailed as dashing heroes who cheerfully stared death in the face. Well, the men were hailed. Female pilots were more ridiculed. “Fly Girls” by Keith O’Brien recounts how a cadre of women banded together to break the original glass ceiling: the entrenched prejudice that conspired to keep them out of the sky. The person who nominated this book stated, “it’s important for people to learn and appreciate the courageous people in the past who overcome huge obstacles that have made the world better for us today. This book does that.”

Check back on Thursday for the last suggested One Read title we will be highlighting.

The One Read reading panel will be sorting through the many titles that were suggested by our community for the 2019 One Read in a few short weeks. Meanwhile, we are continuing to highlight suggested titles so that you can see what others are reading.

Today’s suggested title is “Educated: A Memoir” by Tara Westover. Tara was raised in survivalist family in Idaho, and she never went to public school, but in order to escape her sometimes violent home, she began to teach herself enough to gain entrance into Brigham Young University, and eventually made it all the way to Harvard and Cambridge. One nominator said that they nominated it because it “explores themes of family, relationships, religion and, of course, education” and another nominator said that there’s “Lots to discuss!”

We have just a few more nominated titles to share with you before the year ends. In the meantime, we are highlighting just some of the suggested titles so you can see what others are enjoying.

Set in Iceland in the 1800s, “Burial Rites,” by Hannah Kent follows a woman who is “sentenced” to be housed with a family for her role in a murder. Through the harsh winter, she becomes part of the family, and the community comes to see her as a person. Based on the amazing true story of the final beheading in Iceland, this story shows the culture and community — and how redemption and reconciliation can win over suspicion — a person’s history, the abuse, and the mistakes that are a result of being in the wrong place.