• Big Read Schedule

    The Friends of the Homer Public Library will sponsor The Big Read in Homer, Alaska over six weeks in early spring 2013. The focus of our programming will be Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried.Participants will examine the themes addressed in the book, among them the horrors of war, the social and political changes of the 1960s and 1970s, the power of story and the elusiveness of memory and truth.

    You can borrow a book at the Homer Public Library. You do not need a library card (but they are free). Just ask at the desk for a copy of The Things They Carried.

    Check back for more offerings. If you’d like to be on a mailing list of Big Read activities, send an email to info@friendshomerlibrary.org.

    The Homer Big Read 2013 will include the following activities:

    • Kick-off event: Revisit the Sixties. Music, movie clips, and a costume party. (January 18, 6-8pm at the Homer Public Library)
    • A reader’s theater event featuring sections of the novel, partnering with Pier One Theatre, a community theater group. (January 22, 6-8pm at the Homer Public Library)
    • Professor Michael Hawfield of the Kenai Peninsula College, Kachemak Bay Campus (KBC), will host a lecture and discussion about the political, historical and social ramifications of the Vietnam War. (January 31, 6-8pm at the Homer Public Library)
    • Local author, Rich Chiappone, will host a discussion group at the Homer Library about his short story “Raccoon,” which takes place during the Vietnam War, and will show the short film that was made from the short story. (February 7, 6-8pm at the Homer Public Library)
    • Ann-Margaret Wimmerstadt (from Bunnell Street Arts Center) will be holding a “memory” collage class, encouraging community members of all artistic levels to create art with memorabilia.  (February 19, time and place TBD)
    • Erin Hollowell, an adjunct professor at KBC, will moderate discussion about war poetry with examples from World War I and the Vietnam War as well as poems about the conflict in the Middle East. (February 21, 6-7pm at the Homer Public Library)
    • A capstone address by author Tim O’Brien (March 1, 7:30pm at the Mariner Theater)
    • Throughout the six weeks the library will host a documentary film festival.
    • KBBI, a local public radio station, will set up a “StoryCorps” opportunity; members of the community can record important memories. We will feature these recordings on the Friends of the Homer Public Library website.
    • Activities for young readers with the books The Wall by Eve Bunting and The Buddha’s Diamonds by Carolyn Marsden and Thay Phap Niem.
    • Discussion groups at various places around town.

    If you are interested in hosting a discussion group, please contact info@friendshomerlibrary.org.

    The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.

    Thank you to our sponsors, the NEA and the Homer Foundation.

    bw logo