The
"ReadingTogether" Book Selection Announced
Community-wide selection committee chooses Tim O'Brien's
brilliant collection of short stories:
The Things They Carried .

ReadingTogether invites people of all ages from all
walks of life to read and then discuss important issues
raised by a single book. Thousands of county residents
participated in the three previous ReadingTogether
programs.
Kalamazoo Public Library leads ReadingTogether with
the collaboration of libraries, educational
institutions, health and social service agencies,
cultural, civic and religious organizations, businesses,
the media, and local governments throughout Kalamazoo
County. The Kalamazoo Community Foundation helped the
library launch ReadingTogether with funding for the
first three years with grants from their
"BetterTogether" initiative. The Foundation continues to
be involved and supportive.
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ReadingTogether programming
will take place from February 14 through March
21, 2006, culminating with a visit to Kalamazoo
by author Tim O'Brien, partially funded by a
grant from the Friends of the Kalamazoo Public
Library. Book discussions and special events
will take place throughout this five-week
period. Check
www.readingtogether.us regularly for
information. Details about the author visit,
special events, and book discussions will be
posted as they are planned. |
ReadingTogether coordinator, Joan Hawxhurst, feels
the selection of
The Things They Carried will encourage even
broader participation from across the community,
especially those touched by any of the wars fought by
the U.S. in the past 60 years. "The selection committee
felt that
The Things They Carried offered everything we
look for in a ReadingTogether book: wellcrafted writing,
meaty issues that will provoke deep discussion, and
accessibility to readers of all levels. This book will
appeal to a wide spectrum of county residents and will
draw new participants into the ReadingTogether program."
Copies of
The Things They Carried are now available at all
Kalamazoo Public Library locations and at other
libraries and bookstores throughout the county. For more
information on the reading campaign or to learn how to
organize a book discussion with your neighbors, friends
or coworkers, contact ReadingTogether coordinator, Joan
Hawxhurst, at 553-7913 or email
readingtogether@kpl.gov.
About the Book Selection Process
This year's book selection process was the most
comprehensive and democratic yet. A list of more than
100 titles was compiled from: suggestions from library
patrons and staff solicited over the library website and
at all KPL locations, suggestions gathered from last
year's evaluation process, librarian recommendations,
other community reading programs' selections, and
suggestions from community leaders. Then 30 community
members, including school principals, teachers and
librarians, college, university, special and public
librarians, and representatives from businesses, the
media, and 10 different community groups, were asked to
serve on the selection committee. Each committee member
chose ten titles from the 100+ offered. All top ten
lists were then compiled into a short list of 13, plus
an additional 11 titles that were recommended by
committee members.
The committee members gathered for two hours of
intense discussion on October 6 and voted on the list of
24 books. When the votes were tallied, one book emerged
as the clear favorite of the committee. Library staff
then confirmed that multiple editions would be available
from book vendors and engaged the author for a visit to
Kalamazoo.
About The Things They Carried
One of the first questions people ask about
The Things They Carried is this: Is it a novel,
or a collection of short stories? The title page refers
to the book simply as "a work of fiction," defying the
conscientious reader's need to categorize this
masterpiece. It is both: a collection of interrelated
short pieces that ultimately reads with the dramatic
force and tension of a novel. Yet each of the twenty-two
short pieces is written with such care, emotional
content, and prosaic precision that it could stand on
its own.
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha
Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell
Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and of course, the
character Tim O'Brien who has survived his tour in
Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of
fortythree. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the
idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In
their relationships we see their isolation and
loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their
families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the
lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and
kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them
unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves
while she dances), and love for each other, because in
Vietnam they are the only family they have. We hear the
voices of the men and build images upon their dialogue.
The way they tell stories about others, we hear them
telling stories about themselves.
With the creative verve of the greatest fiction and
the intimacy of a searing autobiography,
The Things They Carried is a testament to the
men who risked their lives in America's most
controversial war. It is also a mirror held up to the
frailty of humanity. Ultimately The Things They Carried
and its myriad protagonists call to order the courage,
determination, and luck we all need to survive.
-- Book synopsis from the Random House website,
publisher of The Things They Carried.
www.randomhouse.com
About Tim O'Brien William
Timothy O'Brien was born in Austin, Minnesota, in
1946. When he was in the fourth grade, his family moved
to Worthington, Minnesota, the "Turkey Capital of the
World" as he describes in If I Die in a Combat Zone.
O'Brien credits his library-board-member father and his
elementary-teacher mother with fostering his love for
books and his belief in the power of stories to tell
truths. His budding literary interests, plus his
devotion to baseball--he played shortstop on a little
league team coached by his father--led to O'Brien's
first writing attempt at around the age of 10: "Timothy
of the Little League"!
At 18, O'Brien left Worthington for Macalaster
College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he majored in
political science. He became active in campus politics
and was elected president of the student body during his
senior year. As the Vietnam War escalated during
O'Brien's college years, he took part in some minor
anti-war demonstrations, but those demonstrations were
not yet of the intensity of the protests that would soon
rock college campuses--including Texas State, where in
1969, a group of students who became known as "the San
Marcos 10" were suspended for engaging in peaceful
protest against the war in Vietnam.
The summer after O'Brien graduated from Macalaster,
he received his draft notice, and in February 1969, he
was sent to Vietnam. He served a 13-month tour of duty,
during which he earned a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star
(for rescuing a wounded comrade under fire), and the
Combat Infantry Badge. After his discharge from the
Army, O'Brien studied American military intervention at
Harvard, worked as a journalist for The Washington Post,
and continued writing about his war experiences, which
he had begun to do while still in Vietnam.
Tim O'Brien is the 2005-2006 Roy F. and Joann Cole
Mitte Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State
University, San Marcos. He is the author of If I Die in
a Combat Zone, Going After Cacciato, winner of the 1979
National Book Award in fiction, and The Things They
Carried, which was named by The New York Times as one of
the ten best books of 1990, received the Chicago Tribune
Heartland Award in fiction, and was a finalist for both
the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle
Award. In 1993, the French edition of The Things They
Carried received the prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre
Etranger. His book In the Lake of the Woods was named by
Time magazine as the best novel of 1994. The book also
received the James Fennimore Cooper Prize from the
Society of American Historians and was selected as one
of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times.
His other books include Northern Lights; The Nuclear
Age; Tomca in Love; and his most recent novel July,
July.
--From The Common Experience Home Page at Texas
State University, San Marcos.
The Common Experience engages students campus-wide in
discussion based on themes raised by their campus Summer
Reading Book.
www.txstate.edu/commonexperience
More on Tim O'Brien may be found at: University of
Texas, San Antonio, Common Reading
www.utsa.edu/lc/commonreading/Biography.cfm
Interview with The Artful Dodge, a Wooster,
Ohio-based literary magazine
www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/interviews/obrien.htm
Chicago Public Library, One Book, One Chicago
www.chipublib.org/003cpl/oboc/things/biography.html |