The Big Read Blog (Archive)

"This Year's Summer Reading" by flickr user leiris202

We're Outta Here!

June 28, 2013
Well friends, it's time once again for the Big Read Blog to take its annual summer hiatus. We'll be back in September---with three new titles to boot!---but in the meantime, we hope you'll keep in touch through our Art Works and Blue Star Museums blogs, and through Facebook and Twitter...
Vijay Iyer being interviewed about "The Namesake". Image courtesy of Larry Josephson / Radio Foundation (c)

Vijay Iyer & The Big Read

June 26, 2013
The moment pianist Vijay Iyer accepted our invitation to provide commentary for the NEA's audio guide for The Namesake , my heart did back flips. Not only does his experience as an Indian-American mirror, to a great extent, that of the novel's author, Jhumpa Lahiri; his story is also...
William Shakespeare / engraved by B. Holl from the print by Houbraken. Image used courtesy of the Library of Congress

Why We Still Need Shakespeare

June 25, 2013
As we get ready to announce our new Shakespeare in American Communities grantees, we thought it was an opportune time to reflect on the continued importance of teaching, reading, and performing Shakespeare. And who better to explain this than those who have been personally touched, influenced, and...
Portrait of Willa Cather by Carl Van Vechten. Image courtesy of the Van Vechten Collection at the Library of Congress

The Freedom to Love

June 21, 2013
We look at LGBT Pride month through the eyes of 21st-century citizens. Things have changed since the Stonewall riots in 1969. There is a wide belief that everyone deserves basic rights, deserves to be treated with equality. The literature world is filled with protagonists of all sexualities, and...
"Into the Beautiful North" front cover used with permission of Little, Brown & Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Luis Alberto Urrea & Tacho

June 19, 2013
Meet Tacho. He's a character in one of the latest Big Read selections, Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea. He’s one of the few men left in the small village where the novel is set, Tres Camarones (Three Shrimp). He owns a taco shop called La Mano Caída (The Fallen Hand), and...
"Poems of Emily Dickinson - Easton Press Edition" by flickr user Jemimus

The Potency of Poetry

June 17, 2013
When I was a kid, I would spend entire days writing stories of sneaking into museums in the night or flying to Mars. I was always imagining some great adventure, and felt that I was destined to share these stories. If you asked ten-year-old me what I thought I would grow up to be, the answer would...
"Dueño de las manzanas: The apple boy, Las Vegas, NM" (1982). Gelatin silver print. Photo by Miguel Gandert

Photographing Prose

June 14, 2013
The art of storytelling is arresting to the senses. A great book will stop you in your tracks. You'll forgo other responsibilities to continue the story. You want more. More is what you get if you're participating in the Fresno County Public Library's Big Read events , which focus on Rudolfo Anaya'...
Author Jacqueline Woodson. Photo by Marty Umans

Jacqueline Woodson on Writing in the Margins

June 13, 2013
“I don’t want people to be invisible. People have a right to see themselves in literature.” --- Jacqueline Woodson Reading a book by Jackie Woodson is a breath of fresh air. In her work, Woodson often includes characters who are on the margins---characters of color, gay characters...
The map of Earthsea, used courtesy of Ursula Le Guin

The Realities Behind Fantasy Literature

June 10, 2013
When I was young, most of the books I read were fantasy novels, as I was easily whisked away by wizards, talking animals, and castles in imaginary lands. I’m not sure when I started favoring more realistic fiction, but when I saw that Ursula Le Guin’s novel, A Wizard of Earthsea was on our Big Read...
The program cover of a recent production of "Our Town "staged at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Image courtesy of Howard Sherman

Address: Sing Sing Prison, Grover’s Corners NY, The Mind Of God

June 7, 2013
Part of the compact we make when we go to the theatre is to shut out the outside world and completely immerse ourselves in the world displayed before us by artists, by actors. We can’t shut out our own thoughts of course, our memories and associations, but our gaze is directed, what we see and hear...

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