National Endowment for the Arts
“You don’t have 

to burn books to 

destroy a culture. 

Just get people 

to stop reading 

them.”

—Ray Bradbury
November 2008
The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to 

supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing 

the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education. 

Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal 

government, the Endowment is the nation’s largest annual funder of the 

arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner cities, 

and military bases. 

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of 

federal support for the nation’s 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. 

The Institute’s mission is to create strong libraries and museums that 

connect people to information and ideas. The Institute works at the 

national level and in coordination with state and local organizations 

to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and 

innovation; and support professional development. 

Arts Midwest connects people throughout the Midwest and the world 

to meaningful arts opportunities, sharing creativity, knowledge, and 

understanding across boundaries. One of six nonprofit regional arts 

organizations in the United States, Arts Midwest’s history spans more 

than 25 years.

Educational materials for American Literary Landmarks are made possible 

through the generous support of the Poetry Foundation.

Transportation for The Big Read is provided by Ford.

Support for The Big Read is provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The Big Read in the Pacific Northwest is supported, in part, by a grant 

from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
Table of Contents

Chairman Dana Gioia’s Message.................................................................iv

Letter to Librarians from Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice................................ v

Application Guidelines for The Big Read.................................................... vi

International Partnerships for The Big Read.............................................. vii 

How The Big Read Books Are Chosen........................................................1

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya..............................................................2

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ..................................................................3

My Ántonia by Willa Cather.........................................................................4 

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich...................................................................5

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald........................................................6

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines.....................................................7

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.....................................................8

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway....................................................9

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.............................10

Washington Square by Henry James............................................................11

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee..........................................................12

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin...............................................13

The Call of the Wild by Jack London..........................................................14

The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz..............................................15

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers...................................16

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien..................................................17

The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick ......................................................................18

The Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe................................................19

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson.........................................................20

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck......................................................21

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan..................................................................22

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy .....................................................23

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain..........................................24

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton .....................................................25

Our Town and The Bridge of 

 San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder..........................................................26

Old School by Tobias Wolff.........................................................................28

Sun, Stone, and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories, 

 edited by Jorge F. Hernández.................................................................29

American Literary Landmarks.....................................................................30

 The Poetry of Emily Dickinson.............................................................31

 The Poetry of Robinson Jeffers..............................................................32

 The Poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ......................................33

Cities and States Hosting Big Read Programs............................................34 

The Big Read Grantees from 2006–2009 ..................................................36

National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ iii
The Big Read is the largest literary program in the history of the federal government. 

An initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, in partnership with the 

Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest, The Big Read is 

designed to bring the transformative power of literature into the lives of Americans. 

A 2004 NEA report, Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, 

identified a critical decline in reading for pleasure among American adults. In 2005, 

The Big Read was created to address the issue directly by providing citizens with the 

opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities. By June 

2009, more than 500 Big Read programs will have occurred across all 50 states, in 

cities small and large, rural and urban.

The purpose of The Big Read, like the purpose of literature itself, is pleasure. Not 

necessarily an easy pleasure, but a deliciously rich and complex one. A great book 

combines enlightenment with enchantment. Literature awakens our imagination and 

enlarges our humanity. It can even offer harrowing insights that somehow console 

and comfort us.

The prospect of an America where only a few people share a love of reading is just 

too lonely to bear. Even if statistics didn’t show that readers are more active in their 

own communities and more engaged in their own lives, the act of reading would still 

be an indispensable part of what makes us fully human. 

It is for these reasons that we at the NEA invite you to join The Big Read. This 

catalogue features the books and poets included in The Big Read library. These great 

works of literature were selected by our Readers Circle—a group of distinguished 

librarians, professors, journalists, and fiction writers from across the country. We hope 

you’ll agree that each book selected for The Big Read has the potential to inspire, 

enlighten, and enchant.

Dana Gioia 

Chairman

National Endowment for the Arts
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is proud to partner 

with the National Endowment for the Arts on The Big Read. IMLS 

is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 122,000 

libraries and 17,500 museums. Our involvement in this program 

promotes our mission to connect people to information and ideas.

We are encouraging libraries everywhere—in schools, on campuses, 

and in communities—to participate in The Big Read. Libraries are 

perfect partners positioned as centers of civic engagement for The 

Big Read. They are trusted places where groups come together to 

learn. And they have librarians—well-schooled experts who know 

about learning and literacy, and who know their communities and 

bring the diverse organizations contained therein to a single table. 

Such partnerships, focused on learning and literacy, unite people. 

Literacy and literature sharpen the imagination, promote empathy 

and learning, and hone critical thinking skills.

The Big Read is an outstanding initiative that benefits our entire 

nation. It has already united communities. We encourage your 

enthusiastic participation.

Anne-Imelda M. Radice, Ph.D.

Director

Institute of Museum and Library Services
The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for 

the Arts (NEA), in partnership with the Institute of Museum 

and Library Services, designed to revitalize the role of literature 

in American culture and bring the transformative power of 

literature into the lives of its citizens. Created by the NEA in 

cooperation with Arts Midwest, The Big Read brings together 

partners across the country to encourage citizens to read for 

pleasure and enlightenment.

An organization applying to participate must be a 501(c)(3) 

nonprofit organization or a division of state, local, or tribal 

government. Eligible applicants include such organizations as 

literary centers, libraries, museums, colleges and universities, art 

centers, historical societies, arts councils, tribal governments, 

humanities councils, literary festivals, and arts organizations. 

Applicant organizations must partner with a library (if the 

organization is not itself a library). 

Community organizations participating in The Big Read 

develop and produce a well-planned and well-attended 

community-wide program with innovative, diverse activities 

and widespread community partnerships and participation. 

Programming should last approximately 4–6 weeks and focus 

on one book from the list of available Big Read titles. 

Organizations selected to participate in The Big Read will 

receive a grant; financial support to attend a national orientation 

meeting; Reader’s, Teacher’s, and Audio Guides for their 

selected title; promotional materials for broad distribution; 

access to an online Organizer’s Guide for developing and 

managing Big Read activities; inclusion of the organization 

and its events on The Big Read Web site; and the prestige of 

participating in a highly visible national initiative. 

To learn more about The Big Read, including current 

programming and grant application deadlines, visit

www.NEABigRead.org.

Application 

Guidelines for 

The Big Read

vi THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
International 

Partnerships for 

The Big Read

The Big Read’s international partnerships are designed 

to deepen dialogue and cultural understanding with 

other countries through the reading of great literature. 

In 2007, the first Big Read international partnership 

was formed with Russia. In coordination with the Open 

World Leadership Center and the Library for Foreign 

Literature in Moscow, a Russian delegation visited 

selected Big Read communities in the United States 

to learn how the program works. Subsequently, two 

regions in Russia, Ivanovo and Saratov, hosted Big Reads 

with programming centered on To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee. In early 2008, communities in three 

states—Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania—took part in 

the U.S. component of Big Read Russia by hosting Big 

Read programs celebrating Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of 

Ivan Ilyich. 

As part of the Global Cultural Initiative undertaken 

with the U.S. Department of State and managed by Arts 

Midwest, the NEA expanded The Big Read to include 

Egypt. Between September 2008 and June 2009, four 

U.S. communities are reading Nobel laureate Egyptian 

author Naguib Mahfouz’s The Thief and the Dogs. 

These grantees visited Egypt to learn about Mahfouz’s 

life and writing, as well as Egyptian literature, history, 

government, and customs. Three Egyptian organizations 

are collaborating on this program: the American 

University in Cairo, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and 

the Egyptian Association for Educational Resources. 

Representatives of these Egyptian organizations visited the 

U.S. in spring 2008 to observe programming and learn 

how to adapt The Big Read for an Egyptian audience. 

Egyptian communities will conduct Big Reads around 

new translations of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and 

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, as well as a reissued 

translation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. 

National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ vii
THE AUTHOR

These Egyptian communities will also use many of The 

Big Read materials for these books, which will be translated 

into Arabic. 

The Big Read with Mexico brought together partners on 

both sides of the border for a pilot program in September and 

October 2008. The book of Mexican literature, Sun, Stone, and 

Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories, was published expressly 

for The Big Read by Mexico’s Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Its stories were selected with U.S. readers in mind. For the 

pilot program, the El Paso Public Library hosted the book’s 

editor and an author of one of the stories for activities in El 

Paso, Texas, and across the border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. 

The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost 

College conducted Big Read activities in Brownsville, Texas, 

and in neighboring Matamoros, Mexico. 

These three international titles—The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The 

Thief and the Dogs, and Sun, Stone, and Shadows—will remain 

permanent selections in The Big Read library and are open 

to all applicants. For grant application guidelines, including 

information about The Big Read’s current international 

partnership opportunities, visit www.NEABigRead.org.

viii THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 1

The National Endowment for the Arts is renowned for the 

panel process that informs all our grants, including national 

initiatives such as The Big Read. To select books for The Big 

Read, the NEA enlists a panel of literary experts and laypeople 

with a passion for literature to serve on the Readers Circle. The 

panelists make recommendations, which are then reviewed by 

the NEA’s Literature staff.

To give cities and towns even greater choice, the number of Big 

Read books has continued to increase as the program expands. 

Twenty-seven books embodying a broad array of traditions, 

cultures, and regions have been selected so far. Though The Big 

Read offers communities a diverse choice of reading, the one 

constant is literary excellence. 

Wendell Berry

poet and novelist 

Dr. James H. 

Billington

Librarian of Congress 

Matthew Bruccoli

scholar and professor 

(1931–2008)

James Lee Burke

author 

Lan Samantha Chang

author and professor 

Maureen Corrigan

author, book critic, 

and professor 

Michael Dirda

book critic 

Anne Fadiman

author and essayist 

Pico Iyer

journalist and 

novelist 

Mitchell Kaplan

former American 

Booksellers 

Association president 

Ted Kooser

former United States 

Poet Laureate

Jim Lehrer

journalist and author 

Jonathan Lethem

author 

Aimee Mann

musician 

Lorrie Moore

author 

Azar Nafisi

author and professor 

Marilyn Nelson

former Connecticut 

State Poet Laureate 

Kathleen Norris

author 

P.J. O’Rourke

essayist and humorist 

Nancy Pearl

author and librarian 

Richard Rodriguez

author 

Kevin Starr

historian and former 

California State 

Librarian 

How The Big 

Read Books 

Are Chosen

The Readers Circle
2 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

THE AUTHOR

Rudolfo Anaya was born 

in the small village of 

Pastura, New Mexico, to 

a cowboy father and his 

bride. The author of more 

than 30 books, including 

The Heart of Aztlan 

(1976), Tortuga (1979), 

and Alburquerque (1992), 

he lives in New Mexico 

with his wife, Patricia. In 

2001 Anaya received the 

National Medal of Arts, the 

nation’s highest award for 

artists.

“I was happy with Ultima . . . She 

taught me to listen to the mystery 

of the groaning earth and to feel 

complete in the fulfillment of its 

time. My soul grew under her 

careful guidance.” 

—from Bless Me, Ultima

Bless Me, Ultima 

by Rudolfo Anaya 

Bless Me, Ultima (1972) by Rudolfo Anaya is a 

coming-of-age novel about pride and assimilation, 

faith and doubt. The summer before Antonio Juan 

Luna Márez turns seven, an old woman comes to 

live with his family in Guadalupe, New Mexico. 

This woman—called La Grande or Ultima—is a 

curandera, a traditional healer feared by many but 

respected by all. Ultima teaches Antonio, and 

their bond deepens as he endures several events 

that profoundly shake his understanding of his 

heritage and destiny. Antonio’s dreams often 

foreshadow the future and feature his three 

older brothers, just demobilized from World 

War II. These surreal dreams also reflect his existential 

questions: Why is there evil in the world? Why does 

God sometimes punish the good? Where will I go after 

death? How can I know the truth? 

Themes:

cultural identity, death, education, religion, tradition

Performance Possibility: 

•	 	La Llorona, opera in three acts, libretto by Rudolfo Anaya 

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

Reader’s Guide available in Spanish
Fahrenheit 451 

by Ray Bradbury 

On October 19, 1953, a young Californian published 

a novel with the odd title Fahrenheit 451. In a gripping 

story both disturbing and poetic, Ray Bradbury took 

the materials of pulp fiction and transformed them into 

a visionary parable of a society gone awry, in which 

firemen burn books and the state suppresses learning. 

Meanwhile, the citizenry sits by in drug-induced 

and media-saturated indifference. One fireman, Guy 

Montag, secretly saves a few books from a burning 

house and begins to read deeply for the first time 

in his life. As his knowledge expands, his growing 

dissatisfaction leads him to leave home and join a 

resistance force of readers, each one responsible for 

memorizing—and therefore preserving—an entire 

book. More relevant than ever a half-century later, 

Fahrenheit 451 has achieved the distinction of being 

both a literary classic and a perennial bestseller.

Themes:

censorship, courage, the effects of technology on society, honor, justice

Film Adaptation:

•	 Fahrenheit 451 (1966, starring Oskar Werner and Julie Christie, 

directed by Francois Truffaut)

Performance Possibilities: 

•	 	Fahrenheit 451, play by Ray Bradbury 

(www.dramaticpublishing.com)

•	 Fahrenheit 451, film score by Bernard Herrmann

•	 Fahrenheit 451, professionally staged adaptation through the 

American Place Theater’s Literature to Life program

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio versions available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

Reader’s Guide available in Spanish

THE AUTHOR

Ray Bradbury was born 

in 1920, in Waukegan, 

Illinois. When his family 

drove across the country 

to California, young Ray 

would pile out of their 

car at every stop to 

explore the local library. 

With the publication of 

The Martian Chronicles in 

1950, Bradbury ensured 

his own lasting place on 

library shelves. The author 

of more than 85 books, 

Bradbury lives in Los 

Angeles.

National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 3

“It was a pleasure to burn. It 

was a special pleasure to see 

things eaten, to see things 

blackened and changed.”

––from Fahrenheit 451
My Ántonia 

by Willa Cather 

A beloved American classic, Willa Cather’s My Ántonia 

(1918) may be best summarized by its epigraph—“the 

best days are the first to flee.” The adult narrator, 

Jim Burden, looks back on his childhood through 

memories of his friend, Ántonia Shimerda, an 

inquisitive immigrant girl from Bohemia. Like 

Cather, 10-year-old Jim has left Virginia for 

Nebraska by train and is shocked by the barren 

prairie on his first wagon ride. With time, he comes 

to love the land and his immigrant neighbors, even 

after he leaves Nebraska to pursue his education 

in Boston and his career in New York. Although 

Jim hears rumors of Ántonia’s ruin, more than 

15 years pass before he musters the courage to return 

to Nebraska and find out what really happened to her. 

The novel teems with romance, violence, tenderness, 

cruelty, and tragedy—all bustling side by side in a 

narrative at once elegant and compassionate.

Themes: 

friendship, the immigrant experience in America, memory, the taming 

of the land, youth

Documentary Film: 

•	 Willa Cather: The Road Is All (PBS American Masters documentary)

Performance PossibilitY: 

•	 Music by Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904), the Bohemian composer

whose Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”) and String 

Quartet in F (the “American” Quartet) are said to draw on spirituals 

and Native American themes absorbed during an 1890s sojourn in 

Iowa and New York 

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

“There was nothing but land . . . 

I had never before looked up at 

the sky when there was not a 

familiar mountain ridge against it. 

But this was the complete dome 

of heaven.” 

––from My Ántonia

THE AUTHOR

Born in 1873 in Virginia’s 

Shenandoah Valley, Willa 

Cather left nine years later 

to join her grandparents in 

the Nebraska territory. 

Her best-known novels—

O Pioneers! (1913), The 

Song of the Lark (1915), 

and My Ántonia (1918)—all 

take place in Nebraska, 

but she lived most of her 

life in New York. She died 

in 1947 and is buried in 

Jaffrey, New Hampshire.

4 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

v
Love Medicine 

by Louise Erdrich

An impressive range of comic and tragic voices 

narrate Love Medicine (1984). Set between 1934 

and 1984, the novel traces several generations of 

two interconnected families—the Kashpaws and 

the Lamartines. Their saga is told primarily by 

Chippewa men and women, some of whom live 

on the reservation near a fictional North Dakota 

town. The novel begins as June Kashpaw, drunk 

and disoriented, sets off on foot into a blizzard. 

She never makes it home. Her relatives gather to 

mourn and stitch together memories of June’s 

life. With these voices, Erdrich leads the reader 

through the interwoven lives of generations. Love 

Medicine is a powerful book about vibrant, complex 

characters and the enduring power of love.

THEMES: 

anger, desire, faith, family, healing, tradition

PERFORMANCE POSSIBILITY:

•	 Love Medicine, a theatrical adaptation by Meryl Friedman

ACCESSIBILITY MATERIALS:

•	 abridged audio version available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

THE AUTHOR

Louise Erdrich was born 

in 1954 in Minnesota, the 

eldest of seven children. 

Erdrich’s heritage is 

Ojibwe, French, and 

German. Love Medicine 

(1984), her first novel, won 

the National Book Critics 

Circle Award. Erdrich has 

published several other 

novels, children’s books, 

collections of poetry, 

and works of nonfiction. 

She lives in Minnesota. 

She received an NEA 

Literature Fellowship 

in 1983.

National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 5

“At times the whole sky was ringed in 

shooting points and puckers of light 

gathering and falling, pulsing, fading, 

rhythmical as breathing. All of a piece. 

As if the sky were a pattern of nerves 

and our thought and memories traveled 

across it. As if the sky were one gigantic 

memory for us all.” 

—from Love Medicine 
“At his lips’ touch she blossomed 

for him like a flower and the 

incarnation was complete.”

––from The Great Gatsby 

The Great Gatsby 

by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby is a 

tragic love story, a mystery, and a social commentary 

on American life. The novel concerns the wasteful 

lives of four wealthy characters as observed by 

the narrator, Nick Carraway. The story of Jay 

Gatsby’s desperate quest to win back his first love 

reverberates with themes at once characteristically 

American and universally human, among them 

the importance of honesty, the temptations 

of wealth, and the struggle to escape the past. 

Though Gatsby’s love, Daisy, pledged to wait 

for his return from World War I, she married 

wealthy Tom Buchanan. Gatsby still worships 

her as his golden girl and, having made a great fortune, 

sets out to win her back. In the novel’s famous 

conclusion, the characters collide, leaving human 

wreckage in their wake.

Themes:

class, fidelity, living in the past, loyalty, temptation 

Film adaptation:

•	 The Great Gatsby (1974, starring Robert Redford, adapted by 

Francis Ford Coppola) 

Performance possibilities:

•	 The Great Gatsby, theatrical adaptation by Simon Levy 

•	 The Great Gatsby, opera by John Harbison, libretto by Murray 

Horwitz

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

THE AUTHOR

Francis Scott Key 

Fitzgerald was born in 

St. Paul, Minnesota, in 

1896. During World War I, 

Fitzgerald was stationed 

in Montgomery, Alabama, 

where he met his future 

wife, Zelda. After The 

Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald 

took nine years to finish 

his next novel, Tender 

Is the Night (1934). He 

died of a heart attack in 

Hollywood in 1940 and 

is buried in Rockville, 

Maryland.

6 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
“You have the chance of being 

bigger than anyone who has 

ever lived on this plantation 

or come from this little town. 

You can do it if you try.”

—from A Lesson Before Dying

A Lesson Before Dying 

by Ernest J. Gaines

Set in Louisiana in the 1940s, Ernest J. Gaines’s 

A Lesson Before Dying (1993) transports the reader 

into the pre-Civil Rights-era South, where the divide 

between races was deeper than the Mississippi. 

Jefferson, a young uneducated black man, is 

sentenced to death for a white storekeeper’s murder. 

The teacher at a former plantation’s schoolhouse, 

Grant Wiggins, is asked to help Jefferson die 

with dignity. Though Grant desperately wants 

to escape the poverty and racism of the parish, 

he is rooted to the area by a sense of duty and 

cannot break away. Using evocative narration 

and pitch-perfect dialogue, Gaines treats his 

characters and the Louisiana countryside with honesty 

and understanding. The result is an evocative look at 

the brutality of racism and the power of compassion.

Themes: 

duty, education, family, human dignity, racism 

Film adaptation: 

•	 A Lesson Before Dying (1999, starring Don Cheadle, directed by 

Joseph Sargent)

Performance possibility: 

•	 A Lesson Before Dying, theatrical adaptation by Romulus Linney

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

THE AUTHOR

Ernest J. Gaines was 

born on a plantation in 

Pointe Coupee Parish, 

Louisiana. At 15, he joined 

his mother and stepfather 

in Vallejo, California. The 

author of other acclaimed 

novels such as The 

Autobiography of Miss 

Jane Pittman (1971) and 

A Gathering of Old Men 

(1983), he is Professor 

Emeritus of Creative 

Writing at University of 

Louisiana at Lafayette and 

lives in Oscar, Louisiana. 

He received an NEA 

Literature Fellowship 

in 1968.

National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 7
“My clients are entitled to a decent 

amount of secrecy. . . . As far as I 

can see, my best chance of clearing 

myself of the trouble you’re trying 

to make for me is by bringing in 

the murderers—all tied up.”

––from The Maltese Falcon 

The Maltese Falcon 

by Dashiell Hammett 

Dashiell Hammett’s third novel, The Maltese Falcon 

(1930), fulfilled his stated ambition to elevate the 

detective novel to the status of literature. Hammett’s 

clean prose and sharp ear for dialogue produced a 

compulsively readable novel that is at once a thriller, 

a love story, and a dry, acerbic comedy. A tough, 

independent detective in San Francisco, Sam Spade 

gets hired under false pretenses by the beautiful and 

mysterious Brigid O’Shaughnessy. After his partner 

turns up dead, Spade’s personal moral code dictates 

that “when a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed 

to do something about it.” He soon realizes the 

death is linked to a group of shady characters seeking 

an elusive jeweled falcon statuette once owned by the 

legendary Knights of Malta. The quest for the falcon 

and the killer has enough twists and surprises to keep 

the reader turning the pages, chasing the truth. 

Themes: 

greed, honor, justice, loyalty

Film adaptations: 

•	 The Maltese Falcon (1931, starring Ricardo Cortez)

•	 Satan Met a Lady (1936, starring Bette Davis)

•	 The Maltese Falcon (1941, starring Humphrey Bogart; adapted and 

directed by John Huston) 

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

Reader’s Guide available in Spanish

THE AUTHOR

Dashiell Hammett was 

born in St. Mary’s County, 

Maryland, in 1894. In 

1920 he moved to San 

Francisco and began 

writing detective stories 

for pulp magazines. Works 

such as Red Harvest 

(1929), The Maltese Falcon 

(1930), and The Thin 

Man (1934) cemented his 

reputation as a master 

of hard-boiled fiction. 

Hammett died in 1961, 

and is buried in Arlington 

National Cemetery.

8 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
“If people bring so much 

courage to this world the 

world has to kill them to 

break them, so of course it 

kills them. The world breaks 

every one and afterward 

many are strong at the 

broken places.” 

—from A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms 

by Ernest Hemingway 

Ernest Hemingway is the notorious tough guy of 

modern American letters, but it would be hard to 

find a more tender and rapturous love story than 

A Farewell to Arms (1929). It also would be hard 

to find a more harrowing American novel about 

World War I. The tragic love story between an 

American ambulance driver, Lieutenant Frederic 

Henry, and his English nurse, Catherine Barkley, 

takes place in Italy and Switzerland. Badly 

wounded at the front, Frederic finds himself 

bedridden in a Milan hospital, where he and 

Catherine fall deeply in love. While Frederic 

recovers from surgery and prepares to return to action, 

Catherine discovers that she is pregnant. Though the 

couple escapes the war, there are dangers that cannot 

be anticipated or avoided. The final chapter is one of 

the most famous, and heartbreaking, conclusions in 

modern literature.

Themes: 

courage, death, honor, liberation, love, war 

Film adaptations: 

•	 A Farewell to Arms (1932, starring Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes) 

•	 A Farewell to Arms (1957, starring Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones)

Documentary FILM:

•	 Ernest Hemingway: Rivers to the Sea (PBS American Masters 

documentary)

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

THE AUTHOR

Born in Oak Park, 

Illinois, in 1899, Ernest 

Hemingway served, like 

his hero in A Farewell to 

Arms, as an ambulance 

driver in World War I, 

received a severe wound, 

and fell in love with one 

of his nurses. His other 

classic works include The 

Sun Also Rises (1926) 

and For Whom the Bell 

Tolls (1940). He died in 

Ketchum, Idaho, in 1961.

National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 9
Their Eyes Were 

Watching God 

by Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel chronicles 

Janie Crawford’s journey from her grandmother’s 

plantation shack, to marriage, to the Florida 

Everglades—until a tragedy brings her back home. 

From this vantage point, Janie narrates her life 

story to her best friend, satisfying the “oldest 

human longing—self-revelation.” Hurston’s 

conviction that black culture is valuable and 

unique comes through in Their Eyes Were 

Watching God via its harmonious blend of 

folklore and black idiom. In Janie Crawford, 

Hurston rejects the 19th- and 20th-century 

stereotypes for women and creates a protagonist who—

though silenced for most of her life—ultimately finds 

her own voice.

Themes: 

finding one’s voice, folklore, racism, religion, sexism 

Film adaptation: 

•	 Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005, starring Halle Berry, adapted 

by Suzan-Lori Parks)

Performance possibilities: 

•	 Jump at the Sun, radio play by Kathleen McGhee-Andersen 

(produced by L.A. Theatre Works) 

•	 Mule Bone, play by Hurston and Langston Hughes

•	 Zora, professionally staged adaptation through the American Place 

Theater’s Literature to Life program

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

“The wind came back with triple 

fury, and put out the light for the 

last time. . . . They seemed to be 

staring at the dark, but their eyes 

were watching God.” 

—from Their Eyes Were Watching God

THE AUTHOR

Zora Neale Hurston was 

born in 1891 in Notasulga, 

Alabama. Her lifelong 

passion to record the 

many voices of her 

people informed her 

fiction and anthropology, 

including Mules and Men

(1935), Their Eyes Were 

Watching God (1937), and 

her autobiography, Dust 

Tracks on a Road (1942). 

Hurston died in poverty 

and obscurity in 1960, 

years before her books 

came back into print. 

10 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
Washington Square 

by Henry James 

Catherine Sloper, the steadfast heroine of Washington 

Square, craves love—from the father disappointed in 

her lack of good looks and intellect, from the aunt 

raising the motherless girl, and especially from her 

handsome suitor, Morris Townsend. Her father, 

refusing to believe his unremarkable daughter 

could attract Townsend with anything other than 

her wealth, forbids the match and threatens to 

disinherit her. Faced with choosing between 

obedience to her father and marrying the man 

she loves, Catherine accompanies her father on 

an extended trip to Europe but tries to maintain 

her relationship with Townsend. Though the 

novel was not commercially successful when published 

in 1880, it gained popularity as Henry James’s literary 

reputation grew and has become a much-loved classic 

whose themes of loyalty and love still resonate 

with readers. 

Themes: 

dignity, fidelity, honor, love, obedience, social expectations 

Film adaptations: 

•	 The Heiress (1949, adapted from Washington Square, starring 

Olivia de Havilland)

•	 Washington Square (1997, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh) 

Performance possibilities: 

•	 The Heiress, 1947 play adapted by Augustus and Ruth Goetz

•	 Washington Square, opera by Thomas Pasatieri, libretto by 

K. Elmslie

•	 Washington Square, ballet set to music by Charles Ives, choreography 

by Rudolf Nureyev, adapted by Nureyev and Jean-Claude Carrière

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

“She grew up a very robust and 

healthy child, and her father, 

as he looked at her, often said 

to himself that, such as she 

was, he at least need have no 

fear of losing her.” 

—from Washington Square 

THE AUTHOR

Henry James was born 

in New York City in 1843.

After the publication of 

Daisy Miller (1879) and 

The Portrait of a Lady 

(1881), James enjoyed 

popularity in Europe 

and America while 

maintaining friendships 

with such writers as Edith 

Wharton, Ivan Turgenev, 

and Gustave Flaubert.

Eventually a British 

subject, he received the 

Order of Merit from King 

George V in 1916 and died 

a month later.

National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 11
“The one thing 

that doesn’t abide 

by majority rule 

is a person’s 

conscience.”

––from To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird 

by Harper Lee 

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) is the 

rare American novel that can be discovered with 

excitement in adolescence and reread into adulthood 

without fear of disappointment. Few novels so 

appealingly or convincingly evoke the daily world 

of childhood. Scout Finch, the novel’s narrator, 

and her brother, Jem, live in the small, rural town 

of Maycomb, Alabama, where they attempt to 

lure a reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley, out of his 

house. When the children’s father, the attorney 

Atticus Finch, agrees to defend a black man falsely 

accused of raping a white woman, his decision 

angers the townspeople and endangers his family. 

Tying the stories together are his simple but profound 

words, “You never really understand a person until you 

consider things from his point of view. . . . Until you 

climb into his skin and walk around in it.” For many 

young people, this funny and humane novel becomes 

their first big read, the grown-up story against which all 

later books will be measured. 

Themes: 

justice, literacy, poverty, racism, responsibility 

Film adaptation:

•	 To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, starring Gregory Peck, adapted by 

Horton Foote) 

Performance possibilities: 

•	 To Kill a Mockingbird, stage adaptation by Christopher Sergel

•	 To Kill a Mockingbird, film score by Elmer Bernstein

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

Reader’s Guide available in Spanish

 

THE AUTHOR

Harper Lee was born in 

Monroeville, Alabama, 

in 1926. She attended 

Huntingdon College in 

Montgomery, Alabama, 

and studied law at the 

University of Alabama 

in Tuscaloosa before 

moving to New York City 

to pursue a career as a 

writer. Lee’s only novel, 

To Kill a Mockingbird, 

received the Pulitzer Prize 

for fiction in 1961 and has 

sold more than 30 million 

copies in 18 languages. 

12 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
A Wizard of Earthsea 

by Ursula K. Le Guin 

A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)—the first book of 

Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series—originated at 

the request of Le Guin’s publisher. Intended as a 

fantasy story for ages 11 and up, Le Guin created a 

world that has fascinated both children and adults. 

Influenced by Norse myths and Native-American 

legends, A Wizard of Earthsea is a coming-of-age 

fantasy adventure. The hero is a young boy, Ged, 

with magical talents and a hunger for greater 

knowledge and power. When Ged fights a 

forbidden duel, he inadvertently summons a 

spirit from the dead. An attack from this spirit 

almost kills him, and a nameless evil shadow is 

unleashed and wanders Earthsea. The novel traces 

Ged’s growth as a man and a wizard, as he learns that 

wisdom comes from humility, silence brings strength, 

and the most powerful magic derives from learning 

one’s true name.

Themes: 

adolescence, the interrelationship of good and evil, the power 

of language

FILM ADAPTATION: 

•	 Gedo Senki (2006, based on Tales from Earthsea, directed by 

Goro Miyazaki)

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

THE AUTHOR

Born in Berkeley, 

California, Ursula K. 

Le Guin has written 

novels, short stories, 

children’s books, and 

poetry. Other major 

works include novels 

The Left Hand of Darkness

(1969) and The Lathe of 

Heaven (1971). Her many 

honors include a National 

Book Award, five Nebula 

Awards, and five Hugo 

Awards. She lives in 

Portland, Oregon.

“For magic consists in 

this, the true naming 

of a thing.” 

––from A Wizard of Earthsea

National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 13
The Call of the Wild 

by Jack London 

The hero of The Call of the Wild is Buck, a 

St. Bernard/Scotch Shepherd dog abducted from 

his comfortable home as a pet in Northern California. 

Sold as a sled dog, Buck learns “the law of club and 

fang.” He courageously survives cruelty—from both 

his trainers and the wilderness—and rises to become 

the leader of the sled team. Buck’s primordial 

instincts return as he endures hunger and fatigue, 

learns to scavenge for food, and fights with his 

rival. Set during the Klondike Gold Rush of 

1897–98 in Canada’s Yukon territory and 

Alaska, The Call of the Wild was serialized 

in The Saturday Evening Post during the 

summer of 1903. Despite its frequent classification 

as juvenile fiction, generations of adults have 

found London’s portrayal of humans and animals 

unforgettable and their struggle for survival in a 

hostile environment moving.

Themes: 

civilization vs. instinct, nature vs. nurture, socialism vs. individualism 

Film adaptations: 

•	 The Call of the Wild (1935, starring Clark Gable) 

•	 The Call of the Wild (1976, adapted by James Dickey)

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

Reader’s Guide available in Spanish

The development of resource materials 

for The Call of the Wild was made possible, 

in part, by a grant from the 

Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

“Deep in the forest a call was 

sounding, and as often as he 

heard this call, mysteriously 

thrilling and luring, he felt 

compelled to turn his back 

upon the fire, and to plunge 

into the forest.” 

—from The Call of the Wild

THE AUTHOR

Born in Oakland, California, 

in 1876, Jack London 

lived a life of romantic 

adventure. At 15, he was an 

oyster pirate, and by 21 a 

miner in the Klondike Gold 

Rush—an experience he 

drew from for The Call 

of the Wild (1903) and 

White Fang (1906). By 

the time of his death in 

1916, he was arguably

the most famous writer 

in America. 

14 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 15

The Thief and the Dogs 

by Naguib Mahfouz 

Naguib Mahfouz’s The Thief and the Dogs (1961) is 

equal parts crime thriller, morality tale, and political 

allegory. The novel begins with career criminal Said 

Mahran’s release from prison. He immediately sets 

off to settle a score and reunite with his young 

daughter, Sana. Rejected and disillusioned, Said’s 

quest for vengeance carries readers from the banks 

of the Nile River, through the boulevards and 

back alleys of Cairo, to Bab al-Nasr, a medieval 

gateway on the outskirts of the city. Mahfouz’s 

first use of the stream-of-consciousness technique, 

the novel is a ground-breaking work that allows 

intimate access to the thoughts, emotions, 

and motivations of a man consumed by rage and 

hell-bent on self-destruction. 

THEMES: 

Arabic culture, freedom, reconciliation, redemption, spiritual 

enlightenment, worldly temptations

FILM ADAPTATION:

•	 Chased by the Dogs (1962 film adaptation of The Thief and the Dogs, 

directed by Kamal El Sheikh)

ACCESSIBILITY MATERIALS:

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

“Leaving his hideout made him all the more 

conscious of being hunted. He now knew 

how mice and foxes feel, slipping away on 

the run. Alone in the dark, he could see 

the city’s lights glimmering in the distance, 

lying in wait for him.” 

—from The Thief and the Dogs 

THE AUTHOR

Naguib Mahfouz was 

born in Cairo, Egypt, in 

1911. After graduating 

from college, Mahfouz 

entered the civil service, 

holding a variety of posts 

until his retirement. A 

prolific and internationally 

distinguished writer, in 

1988 he became the first 

Arab author to win the 

Nobel Prize for Literature. 

That same year Mahfouz 

received the Order of 

the Nile, Egypt’s highest 

honor, from President 

Hosni Mubarak. Naguib 

Mahfouz died in 2006 at 

the age of 94. 
16 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

THE AUTHOR

To know Mick Kelly—

the precocious, dreamy 

heroine of The Heart Is a 

Lonely Hunter—is to know 

a young Carson McCullers, 

born in 1917 in Columbus, 

Georgia. At 17 she left 

Georgia for New York 

City to become a writer. 

The author of five novels, 

two plays, 20 short 

stories, poetry, and more 

than two dozen works of 

non-fiction, McCullers died 

in 1967. 

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

by Carson McCullers 

Carson McCullers’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

(1940) is set in a small Georgia mill town in the late 

1930s. John Singer, a deaf man, rents a room in the 

Kelly house after his companion, Spiros Antonapoulos, 

is sent away to an asylum. The amiable Singer 

becomes confidant to four of the town’s misfits—

Mick Kelly, a teenage girl who dreams of becoming 

a musician; Benedict Mady Copeland, the town’s 

black doctor; Jake Blount, an alcoholic socialist; and 

Biff Brannon, the owner of the local café. Over 

the course of a year, the characters find solace in 

Singer, who pines for his friend, Antonapoulos. This 

tragic, small-town drama is so ambitious in its scope—

presenting five radically different characters whose 

troubled lives intersect in the Depression-era South—it 

is hard to believe that The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter was 

the first book of a 23-year-old writer. 

Themes: 

communication, isolation, loneliness, loss, racism, suffering

Film Adaptation: 

•	 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968, starring Alan Arkin)

performance possibility: 

•	 Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E flat, Op. 55 (Eroica) (which 

holds Mick Kelly spellbound in the novel)

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

“The town was in the middle of the deep South. 

The summers were long and the months of winter 

cold were very few. Nearly always the sky was a 

glassy, brilliant azure and the sun burned down 

riotously bright.” 

—from The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 17

THE AUTHOR

Born in 1946 and raised in 

Worthington, Minnesota, 

Tim O’Brien was drafted 

in 1968 and served in 

Vietnam as an infantryman 

for the U.S. Army until 

1970. The Things They 

Carried (1990) was a 

finalist for the Pulitzer 

Prize and the National 

Book Critics Circle Award. 

O’Brien’s other works 

include the National Book 

Award winner Going After 

Cacciato (1979) and In the 

Lake of the Woods (1994), 

named Best Novel of the 

Year by Time Magazine. He 

teaches creative writing at 

Texas State University. 

The Things They Carried 

by Tim O’Brien

Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried (1990) is 

considered one of the finest books written about 

the Vietnam War. Merging memoir and fiction in 

interrelated stories, O’Brien examines the war from a 

variety of perspectives to make sense of his platoon’s 

experience. A narrator named “Tim O’Brien” 

recounts the plight of an isolated unit as they dodge 

sniper fire and their own misgivings, all while 

lugging memories of home through the jungles. 

O’Brien then undercuts the stories by claiming 

they never happened—challenging the book’s 

powerful sense of autobiographical authority. 

O’Brien’s unique storytelling style gets at the 

truth of war by mapping the emotional landscape of a 

battlefield without a front. The resulting book is brutal, 

sometimes funny, and always profound, presenting a 

new way of writing about war. 

THEMES: 

courage, death, fear, memory, storytelling, truth, war

FILM ADAPTATION:

•	 A Soldier’s Sweetheart (1998, starring Kiefer Sutherland, adapted by 

Thomas Michael Donnelly from the story “Sweetheart of the Song 

Tra Bong” by Tim O’Brien)

PERFORMANCE POSSIBILITY:

•	 The Things They Carried, professionally staged adaptation through 

the American Place Theater’s Literature to Life program

ACCESSIBILITY MATERIALS:

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

“The thing about a story is that you dream it 

as you tell it, hoping that others might then 

dream along with you, and in this way memory 

and imagination and language combine to 

make spirits in the head.” 

—from The Things They Carried 
18 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

THE AUTHOR

The daughter of Russian 

immigrants, Cynthia Ozick 

was born in New York 

City in 1928. She has won 

the Rea Award for the 

Short Story and received 

four nominations for the 

National Book Critics’ 

Circle Award, winning 

for Quarrel & Quandary

(2000). She received an 

NEA Literature Fellowship 

in 1968 and lives in 

New York.

The Shawl 

by Cynthia Ozick

In the opening pages of Cynthia Ozick’s The 

Shawl (1989), Rosa Lublin is a prisoner in a Nazi 

concentration camp during World War II, “a place 

without pity” where she witnesses her young daughter’s 

murder. The rest of the book takes place 30 years 

later in Miami, where Rosa lives “among the elderly, 

in a dark hole, a single room.” Still traumatized by 

her past suffering, Rosa struggles to reclaim at least 

a portion of the life stolen from her while clinging 

tenaciously to a mother’s dreams for what her child 

might have become. Though Ozick examines 

the brutality of which man is capable, ultimately 

the book testifies to the resilience of the human 

spirit. Readers should not be fooled by the slimness of 

The Shawl. Ozick’s prose is both intensely poetic and 

emotionally unsettling. The book—actually a short 

story, “The Shawl,” followed by a related novella, 

“Rosa”—carries the impact of a work many times 

its length, and each story earned the coveted Best 

American Short Story and O. Henry awards.

Themes: 

discrimination, genocide, grief, loss, poverty, resilience 

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version of The Shawl available

•	 unabridged audio version of the short story “The Shawl” available,

read by Cynthia Ozick (part of The Best American Short Stories 

of the Century)

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

“Blue digits on the arm, 

what difference? They 

don’t call you a woman 

anyhow. Survivor.” 

—from The Shawl
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 19

THE AUTHOR

Born in 1809 in Boston, 

Edgar Allan Poe was 

raised in Virginia, expelled 

from West Point, and 

served as an editor up and 

down the East Coast. Poe 

was widely acknowledged 

during his lifetime for his 

literary criticism. His own 

writing gained attention 

with The Raven and Other 

Poems in 1845. Since his 

mysterious death in 1849, 

Poe’s poetry and short 

fiction have haunted 

critics and readers alike.

The Stories and Poems 

of Edgar Allan Poe

The work of Edgar Allan Poe remains among the most 

innovative and original contributions to American 

poetry and fiction. Poe almost single-handedly shaped 

what were then only emerging genres of horror and 

science fiction, and he all but invented the detective 

story. From “The Tell-Tale Heart” to “The Fall of 

the House of Usher,” Poe’s mastery of psychology 

and suspense plunges the reader right into the action. 

What Walt Whitman called Poe’s “intense faculty 

for technical and abstract beauty” comes alive on 

every page. Combining stylistic virtuosity with a 

deep understanding of the darkness of the human 

heart, Poe’s stories and poems feel as alive today as 

they did more than 150 years ago. 

THEMES:

crime, death, mystery, psychology, revenge, romance

FILM ADAPTATIONS:

•	 The Fall of the House of Usher/The Pit and the Pendulum (1960 

DVD double feature, starring Vincent Price, directed by 

Roger Corman)

•	 The Masque of the Red Death/The Premature Burial (1964 DVD

double feature, starring Vincent Price, directed by Roger Corman)

DOCUMENTARY FILM:

•	 Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul (1995, PBS American 

Masters series)

PERFORMANCE POSSIBILITIES:

•	 Poetry Out Loud recitation competition of Edgar Allan 

Poe’s poetry, www.poetryoutloud.org

•	 The Bells, choral symphony by Sergei Rachmaninov

•	 The Fall of the House of Usher, opera by Philip Glass

ACCESSIBILITY MATERIALS:

•	 unabridged audio versions available for selected works

•	 large print editions available for selected works

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped 

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before . . .”

––from “The Raven”
20 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

THE AUTHOR

Marilynne Robinson was

born in 1943 and grew 

up in the Idaho town of 

Sandpoint, not unlike

Fingerbone in 

Housekeeping. Many know 

her as the author of the 

Pulitzer Prize-winning 

novel Gilead (2004), 

the saga of an ailing 

Congregationalist pastor, 

recounting his life for a 

son he will never know. 

Her most recent novel is 

Home (2008). Robinson 

also has written two 

nonfiction books, and

teaches at the University 

of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. 

Housekeeping 

by Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping (1981) begins 

with a train wreck on a lonely lake during a moonless 

night. Because her grandfather died in the crash and 

her mother later drowned in the same lake, the novel’s 

narrator, Ruth, has grown up with her sister under 

the care of a succession of female family members. 

Set in the fictional Idaho town of Fingerbone, 

the story’s lake is a powerful presence in all their 

lives. Housekeeping examines each character with 

precision and clarity, revealing the complex 

relationships of individuals caught between 

familial responsibility and the wish for freedom. 

Themes: 

abandonment, adoption, grieving, nontraditional families, 

small-town life

Film adaptation: 

•	 Housekeeping (1987, adapted and directed by Bill Forsyth)

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

“To crave and to have are as like 

as a thing and its shadow . . . 

and when do our senses know 

any thing so utterly as when we 

lack it?” 

—from Housekeeping
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 21

THE AUTHOR

Born in the California 

Central Valley in 1902, 

John Steinbeck endured 

decades of enmity from 

his hometown for its 

depiction in the Pulitzer 

Prize-winning The Grapes 

of Wrath. The 1962 

memoir Travels With 

Charley: In Search of 

America freshened and 

deepened Steinbeck’s 

already wide readership. 

That same year, he 

won the Nobel Prize 

for literature. He died in 

Manhattan in 1968.

The Grapes of Wrath 

by John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is both 

a great novel and a catalyst for change in American 

history. Capturing the plight of millions of Americans 

impoverished by the Dust Bowl and the Great 

Depression, Steinbeck awakened the nation’s 

comprehension and compassion. The novel begins 

with young Tom Joad’s return home from prison to 

find his family’s Oklahoma farmstead in ruins. The 

Joads soon set out for a better life in California, 

only to find a plantation economy whose bounty 

makes no provision for them except as occasional 

day laborers. Written in an amazing five-month burst 

of productivity, The Grapes of Wrath’s creation stands 

testament to perhaps its greatest theme: the dignity of 

hard work, done by hand and beset by doubt, with all 

one has, and for others to share.

Themes: 

the American Dream, ecology, immigration, individuals vs. 

corporations, redemption, tolerance 

Film adaptation: 

•	 The Grapes of Wrath (1940, starring Henry Fonda, directed by 

John Ford)

Performance possibilities: 

•	 The Grapes of Wrath, stage adaptation by Frank Galati

•	 The Grapes of Wrath, opera by Ricky Ian Gordon, libretto by 

Michael Korie

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

Reader’s Guide available in Spanish

“On the highways the people 

moved like ants and searched 

for work, for food. And the 

anger began to ferment.” 

––from The Grapes of Wrath
22 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

THE AUTHOR

Amy Tan was born in 

Oakland, California, in 

1952, several years after 

her parents immigrated to 

the Bay area from China. 

After her first trip to China 

with her mother, Tan 

wrote The Joy Luck Club.

Her other works include 

several acclaimed novels, 

the children’s book Sagwa,

The Chinese Siamese Cat 

(1994), and the essay 

collection The Opposite of 

Fate (2003). She lives in 

northern California.

The Joy Luck Club 

by Amy Tan

Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1989) is itself a joyful 

study in luck. Initially intended as a short-story 

collection, the novel is a mother-daughter saga written 

by a woman whose own mother wanted her to be 

anything but a writer. The novel features four pairs 

of mothers and daughters. One of these mothers, 

Suyuan Woo, invented the original “Joy Luck 

Club” in China, before the Japanese invaded the 

city of Kweilin. After Suyuan reaches America, 

she resurrects the club with three other Chinese 

immigrants, and the four reinvent themselves in 

San Francisco’s Chinatown. These four mothers 

hope the mix of “American circumstances with Chinese 

character” will give their California-born daughters 

better lives. Through the power of storytelling, all eight 

women struggle to connect despite the ghosts and 

secrets of the past.

Themes: 

fate, hope, memories, parent-child relationships, sacrifice 

Film adaptation: 

•	 The Joy Luck Club (1993, co-written by Amy Tan and Ronald Bass, 

directed by Wayne Wang)

Performance possibility: 

•	 The Joy Luck Club, film score by Rachel Portman

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 abridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

“They see that joy and luck 

do not mean the same to 

their daughters, that to 

these closed American-born 

minds ‘joy luck’ is not a 

word, it does not exist.” 

––from The Joy Luck Club
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 23

THE AUTHOR

Count Leo Nikolaevich 

Tolstoy (1828–1910) was 

orphaned at nine. He 

later joined the army and 

served in the Crimean 

War. Between 1863 and 

1869 Tolstoy wrote War 

and Peace, his epic of 

France’s 1812 invasion of 

Russia. Anna Karenina

(1875–77) followed, as did 

his preoccupation with 

early Christianity subtly 

present in The Death of 

Ivan Ilyich (1886). 

“Ivan Ilyich’s life had 

been most simple and 

most ordinary and 

therefore most terrible.” 

––from The Death of Ivan Ilyich

The Death of Ivan Ilyich 

by Leo Tolstoy 

The 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich dramatizes 

Leo Tolstoy’s central spiritual concerns. Although Ivan 

Ilyich Golovin is a Russian judge and official, he is 

also a middle-class everyman whose eventual death 

results from a trivial accident while he’s hanging a 

curtain in his home. As his disease progresses, Ivan 

Ilyich recognizes the hypocrisy of his society and the 

insincerity of his family, and ultimately confesses 

the futility of his life. Surrounded by his wife, 

daughter, colleagues, and doctors, Ivan Ilyich feels 

even more isolated and alone. As his physical 

pain increases, so does Ivan Ilyich’s emotional 

awareness of a horrifying truth: he has not lived a 

meaningful life. The power of the novella stems 

from Tolstoy’s psychological insight, sharp satire, 

and sensory realism. 

Themes: 

conformity, death, hypocrisy, mortality 

Film adaptationS: 

•	 Ikiru (1952, inspired by The Death of Ivan Ilyich, directed and 

co-written by Akira Kurosawa)

•	 A Question of Faith (1979, starring Harry Andrews)

•	 Ivans xtc (2000, starring Danny Huston)

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 large print edition available
24 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

THE AUTHOR

The writer we know as 

Mark Twain was born 

Samuel Clemens in 1835 in 

Florida, Missouri. He wrote 

comic newspaper stories 

in the California goldfields, 

uproarious nonfiction 

such as Roughing It 

(1872), and novels–– 

including The Adventures 

of Tom Sawyer and The 

Adventures of Huckleberry 

Finn (1885)––in which not 

just his heroes, but all of 

American literature grows 

up. He died in 1910 in 

Redding, Connecticut.

The Adventures of 

Tom Sawyer 

by Mark Twain

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) 

is a story of a mischievous boy growing up before the 

Civil War in a small Mississippi River town. Twain’s 

first full-length novel brims with the exultation 

of a world-class sprinter finding out he can run 

marathons, too. What many people mistake for a 

children’s novel is really a natural introduction—

or re-introduction—to the pleasures of literature, 

whatever a reader’s age. As Twain himself wrote 

in his preface, “Although my book is intended 

mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I 

hope it will not be shunned by men and women 

on that account, for part of my plan has been to try 

to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were 

themselves, and of how they felt and thought and 

talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes 

engaged in.”

Themes: 

childhood, education, family, racism 

Film adaptation:

•	 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938, starring Walter Brennan)

Documentary films:

•	 Mark Twain (3-1/2 hours, two-part documentary from Ken Burns)

•	 Mark Twain Tonight! (starring Hal Holbrook)

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

Reader’s Guide available in Spanish “Like it? Well I don’t see why I 

oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy 

get a chance to whitewash a 

fence every day?”

—from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 25

THE AUTHOR

Born in New York in 

1862, Edith Wharton won 

literary fame with The 

House of Mirth (1905). 

One of the 20th century’s 

most prolific, wealthy, and 

distinguished American 

writers, Wharton 

published more than 45 

books of poetry, nonfiction, stories, and novels 

to both popular and 

critical acclaim. She died 

in 1937 in France, where 

she had lived the last 27 

years of her life.

The Age of Innocence 

by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence (1920) begins 

at the opera on a January evening in the 1870s. In the 

audience is Newland Archer, an affluent New York 

lawyer in his 30s, “sincerely yet placidly in love” with 

beautiful May Welland. Newland never questions 

that his fiancée will be the perfect wife until May’s 

cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, returns home 

suddenly after many years in Europe. From the 

moment Ellen enters the opera, she shocks Old 

New York, but when she wants to divorce her 

Polish husband, she risks public disgrace. With 

time, Newland not only falls in love with 

Ellen—despite his impending wedding to May—

but also begins to see the hypocrisy of his world. Will 

he follow the wishes of his family and convince Ellen 

to remain in an oppressive marriage? Or will he risk his 

own name and encourage her to seek a divorce? 

Themes: 

conformity, desire, divorce, duty, marriage, temptation

Film adaptation: 

•	 The Age of Innocence (1993, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle 

Pfeiffer, adapted by Jay Cocks, directed by Martin Scorsese)

performance possibility: 

•	 Faust by Charles Gounod (1859, the opera that begins and ends 

the novel)

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

“In reality they all lived in a kind 

of hieroglyphic world, where 

the real thing was never said or 

done or even thought, but only 

represented by a set of arbitrary 

signs.” 

––from The Age of Innocence
26 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

THE AUTHOR

Thornton Niven Wilder 

was born in Madison, 

Wisconsin, in 1897. 

He attended Yale and 

Princeton and remained 

a passionate teacher of 

languages and literature 

throughout his life. Wilder 

received Pulitzer Prizes for 

three works: The Bridge 

of San Luis Rey (1927), 

Our Town (1938), and 

The Skin of Our Teeth

(1943). He died in Hamden, 

Connecticut, in 1975.

Our Town 

First produced in 1938, Our Town remains Thornton 

Wilder’s most enduring play. At the dawn of the 

twentieth century, the Stage Manager guides the 

audience through three days in Grover’s Corners, New 

Hampshire: an ordinary day, a wedding day, and a 

burial. In Act Three, Wilder positions the deceased 

characters on stage as spectators of life in Grover’s 

Corners. One character gets to re-experience a single 

day of her life on earth. Unable to alter or prolong 

the day, she finds once-inconsequential details now 

crushingly precious and painfully brief. Wilder’s 

enduring characters ask us to consider our lives—

our towns—and the sanctity of each mundane, 

fleeting day. 

THEMES:

family, love, marriage, mortality, preciousness of life

FILM ADAPTATIONS:

•	 Our Town (1940, adapted by Thornton Wilder, starring William 

Holden, original score by Aaron Copland)

•	 Our Town (2003, PBS Masterpiece Theater Collection, starring Paul 

Newman, directed by James Naughton)

DOCUMENTARY FILMS:

•	 OT: Our Town, A Famous American Play in an Infamous American 

Town (2002, documentary, directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy)

•	 Living and Dying in “Our Town” (2007, hosted by Eli Wallach, 

interviews with Paul Newman, Cynthia Nixon, and Eric Stoltz)

PERFORMANCE POSSIBILITies:

•	 Our Town, opera in two acts based on the play (2006, composed 

by Ned Rorem, libretto by J.D. McClatchy)

•	 Our Town, film score by Aaron Copland

PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENT: 

•	 Staged production of Our Town

ACCESSIBILITY MATERIALS:

•	 large print edition available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

“Good-by, Good-by, world. Goodby, Grover’s Corners. . . . Oh, earth, 

you’re too wonderful for anybody 

to realize you.”

—from Our Town

26 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

special joint program
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 27

The Bridge of San Luis Rey 

Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning second 

novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), is set in 

eighteenth-century Peru. The novel begins as the 

narrator recalls the tragic collapse of a rope bridge 

that claimed five victims. Questioning why those five 

people perished, a Franciscan missionary, Brother 

Juniper, investigates the victims’ lives—a pursuit that 

jeopardizes his own. Beneath the novel’s deceptively 

simple premise stirs an unruly, timeless human 

question: Does life have an assigned course beyond 

individual control?

THEMES:

chance, destiny, familial and romantic love, retribution

FILM ADAPTATIONS:

•	 The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944, starring Alla Nazimova and 

Donald Woods, adapted by Howard Estabrook, directed by 

Rowland V. Lee)

•	 The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2005, starring Kathy Bates, 

Gabriel Byrne, and Robert De Niro, adapted and directed 

by Mary McGuckian)

ACCESSIBILITY MATERIALS:

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

“There is a land of the living 

and a land of the dead and the 

bridge is love, the only survival, 

the only meaning.”

––from The Bridge of San Luis Rey 

A Play and a Novel by Thornton Wilder

special

joint program

The Big Read 

communities that 

select Thornton 

Wilder will create 

programming around 

both The Bridge of 

San Luis Rey and 

Our Town, including 

a production of 

Our Town performed 

by a local school 

drama department, 

community theater, 

or professional theater 

company.
28 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

THE AUTHOR

Born in Birmingham, 

Alabama, in 1945, Tobias 

Wolff is an accomplished 

writer and teacher. The 

memoirs This Boy’s Life

(1989) and In Pharaoh’s 

Army (1994) recall 

his adolescence in 

Washington State and 

four years in the military. 

This Boy’s Life and 

Old School were each 

nominated for the National 

Book Critics’ Circle Award. 

Wolff teaches at Stanford 

University and lives in 

northern California. He 

also has received two NEA 

Literature Fellowships in 

1978 and 1985.

Old School 

by Tobias Wolff

In Tobias Wolff’s Old School (2003), the characters talk 

and think about literature as if their lives depend upon 

it. Wolff’s narrator, a secretly half-Jewish scholarship 

student from the Northwest, is nearing graduation at 

a classy all-boy prep school during the Kennedy era. 

The first three sections of the novel take the form of 

campus visits by the poet Robert Frost, the writer 

Ayn Rand, and novelist Ernest Hemingway, whose 

anticipated arrival drives Wolff’s hero-worshipping 

narrator to an act of desperation. The fourth 

section comes decades later as the adult narrator 

reckons with his earlier conduct while visiting the 

school as a guest writer himself. Old School examines 

the price of sacrificing integrity and the powerful allure 

of artistic fame. 

Themes: 

education, fame, honor, integrity, plagiarism, truth

PERFORMANCE POSSIBILITY:

• 	 Poetry Out Loud recitation contest of Robert Frost’s poetry,

www.poetryoutloud.org

Accessibility Materials: 

•	 unabridged audio version available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) 

“Make no mistake, he said: 

a true piece of writing is 

a dangerous thing. It can 

change your life.” 

––from Old School
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 29

ANTHOLOGY WRITERS

Inés Arredondo, Juan José Arreola, 

Juan de la Cabada, Rosario 

Castellanos, Salvador Elizondo, 

Carlos Fuentes, Elena Garro, 

Francisco Rojas González, Martín 

Luis Guzmán, Efrén Hernández, 

Jorge Ibargüengoitia, José Emilio 

Pacheco, Octavio Paz, Sergio Pitol, 

Juan García Ponce, José Revueltas, 

Alfonso Reyes, Juan Rulfo, Francisco 

Tario, and Edmundo Valadés

Sun, Stone, and Shadows

20 Great Mexican Short Stories

Edited by Jorge F. Hernández

Sun, Stone, and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short 

Stories has the distinction of being the first book 

created expressly for The Big Read. Its stories, 

selected with U.S. readers in mind, represent a 

remarkable array of Mexico’s rich and vibrant 

literary history. This collection includes 20 tales 

of extraordinary quality, written by the finest 

Mexican authors born during the first half of 

the twentieth century—among them Rosario 

Castellanos, Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz, and 

Juan Rulfo. Through these pages, readers will 

tour the literary, historic, and geographic landscape 

of Mexico. Sun, Stone, and Shadows is a catalyst for 

cultural understanding and conversation between the 

people of Mexico and the United States.

THEMES:

Mexican culture, revolution, social justice, spirituality, surrealism

FILMS RELATED TO MEXICAN AUTHORS 

OR CULTURE:

• Los Olvidados (1950, written and directed by Luis Buñuel)

• Viva Zapata! (1952, starring Marlon Brando, written by John 

Steinbeck, directed by Elia Kazan)

•	 Pedro Páramo (1967, co-adapted by Carlos Fuentes from Juan 

Rulfo’s novel)

• Old Gringo (1989, adapted from Carlos Fuentes’s novel, The Old 

Gringo, directed by Luis Puenzo)

PERFORMANCE POSSIBILITIES:

• 	 Music by Mexican composers such as Carlos Chávez (1899–1978),

Blas Galindo (1910–1993), José Pablo Moncayo (1912–1958), and 

Silvestre Revueltas (1899–1940)

• Danzón No. 2, referred to as the second Mexican national anthem, 

composed by Arturo Márquez (b. 1950)

• Rappaccini’s Daughter, composed by Daniel Catan, libretto by 

Juan Tover, based on a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne as retold by 

Octavio Paz

The anthology, Sun, Stone, and Shadows, and Audio, Reader’s, and 

Teacher’s Guides available in English and Spanish

“This collection presents a 

dignified enclave of the best 

writers and tales of Mexico, 

whose translation into other 

languages will develop into a 

faithful photograph (whether 

in black and white, or color) of 

Mexico’s varied faces, its flavors 

and colors . . .”

––Jorge F. Hernández from Sun, Stone, and Shadows
30 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

In 2007, the National Endowment for the Arts created American Literary Landmarks, 

a new component of The Big Read, to celebrate great American poets and the nation’s 

historic poetry sites. In partnership with the Poetry Foundation, the NEA provided these 

sites with educational and promotional materials similar to those created for the national 

Big Read program, as well as grants to support programming. This pilot initiative originally 

featured two poets: Robinson Jeffers and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The pilot also will 

include the poet Emily Dickinson.

Robinson Jeffers

The Big Read: The Poetry of Robinson Jeffers celebrated the poet and Tor House, Jeffers’s 

family home in Carmel, California. In 2008, three central California organizations received 

grants to host a range of activities about Jeffers’s life and work.

The Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation received a grant to support a month-long 

celebration of Jeffers throughout Monterey County. The National Steinbeck Center 

received a grant to support an exhibition showcasing Jeffers’s poetry. Also included in the 

center’s programming was a visit by Pablo Soler Frost, a Mexican writer and the translator 

of Jeffers’s poetry. A third grant went to the University of California, Santa Cruz, to host 

a symposium on the work of Jeffers featuring a staged reading of Jeffers’s adaptation of 

Medea, and readings by award-winning poets, including Adrienne Rich, Li-Young Lee, 

Gary Young, and Mark Jarman.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

The Big Read: The Poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow launched in September 

2007 with a grant to Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, to support 

a community-wide program. Educational materials were also provided to two additional 

Longfellow historic sites: the Craigie-Longfellow House (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and 

the Wadsworth-Longfellow House (Portland, Maine).

American Literary Landmarks: 2009–2010 Programming

Beginning with 2009-2010 programming, interested organizations nationwide can apply 

to host a Big Read program featuring one of three poets: Dickinson, Jeffers, or Longfellow. 

In addition to receiving a grant to support programming, one of the major benefits of 

The Big Read for community organizations is the availability of high-quality educational 

and promotional materials provided at no cost. The American Literary Landmarks 

educational and promotional materials are made possible through the generous support of 

the Poetry Foundation. 

To learn more about American Literary Landmarks, including current application 

guidelines and featured poems, visit www.NEABigRead.org.

American Literary Landmarks
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 31

THE POET

Emily Dickinson was born 

on December 10, 1830, in 

Amherst, Massachusetts. 

She became a promising 

student, advancing to 

Mount Holyoke Female 

Seminary. After one 

year, experiencing poor 

health and debilitating 

homesickness, Dickinson 

returned home. With the 

exception of this short 

period of study, and a few 

domestic trips, Dickinson 

lived at her childhood 

home. She died in 1886 

and is buried in the 

Amherst town cemetery.

The Poetry of 

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson’s concise, powerful poems astutely 

examine pain, grief, joy, love, nature, and art. Over 

the course of her life, she wrote 1,789 poems, formally 

publishing only seven. Instead, Dickinson’s work was 

kept largely private, with the exception of sending her 

writing to trusted friends or confidants such as Thomas 

Wentworth Higginson. Dickinson lived most of her life 

at her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, where 

she devoted herself to her garden and her poetry. She 

became increasingly reclusive during the last 25 years 

of her life. After her death, Dickinson’s younger sister, 

Lavinia, rescued the poems from her sister’s private 

chest and fought to get the poems published. Emily 

Dickinson is now widely admired as one of America’s 

most original and important poets.

THEMES:

death, hope, inspiration, longing, love, nature, religion

FILM ADAPTATION:

•	 The Belle of Amherst (1976, starring Julie Harris, based on a 

play by William Luce)

DOCUMENTARY FILMS:

•	 Loaded Gun: Life, and Death, and Dickinson (2008, a PBS 

documentary)

•	 Emily Dickinson: A Certain Slant of Light (2006)

•	 Great Women Writers: Emily Dickinson (2000)

PERFORMANCE POSSIBILITIES:

•	 Come Slowly, Eden: A Portrait of Emily Dickinson, a play 

by Norman Rosten 

•	 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson, a song cycle by Aaron Copland

ACCESSIBILITY MATERIALS:

•	 unabridged audio versions available

•	 large print editions available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically

Handicapped (NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/) “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers— 

That perches in the soul— 

And sings the tune without the words— 

And never stops—at all—”

—from “ ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers–”

Emily Dickinson lived with her family at the 

Homestead in Amherst, MA.
32 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

THE POET

Born in the suburbs of 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 

in 1887, Robinson Jeffers 

studied literature, 

medicine, and forestry 

before realizing poetry 

was his calling. Jeffers was 

catapulted to celebrity 

with the publication of 

Roan Stallion, Tamar and 

Other Poems in 1925. By 

World War II, Jeffers’s 

critical reputation had 

collapsed and would not 

rise again until after his 

death in 1962.

The Poetry of 

Robinson Jeffers 

The poetry of Robinson Jeffers is emotionally direct, 

magnificently musical, and philosophically profound. 

Determined to write truthful poetry purged of 

ephemeral things, Jeffers cultivated a style at once 

lyrical, tough-minded, and timeless, while scarcely 

stirring from his beloved home, Tor House in Carmel, 

California. Living on the edge of the Pacific, he found 

wisdom, strength, and perspective from observing 

the forces of nature around him. Once shunned for 

his unpopular political views and harsh critiques of 

mankind’s egotism, Jeffers has regained popularity in 

recent years as environmentalism’s most forceful poetadvocate. Featured on the cover of Time magazine in 

1932, Jeffers’s major works include the Roan Stallion, 

Tamar and Other Poems (1925), The Women at Point 

Sur (1927), and a 1946 adaptation of the Greek 

drama Medea. 

THEMES:

animals, environment, man’s relationship to the earth, 

respect for nature 

DOCUMENTARY FILM:

•	 Place for No Story (1973, KQED public television documentary)

PERFORMANCE POSSIBILITIES:

•	 Medea, a play by Jeffers (1946)

•	 Medea, an opera by Alva Henderson based on Jeffers’s play

•	 “The Beaks of Eagles” by the Beach Boys from their album

Holland (1973)

ACCESSIBILITY MATERIALS:

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

“One light is left us: the beauty of things, not men;

The immense beauty of the world, not the human world.

Look—and without imagination, desire nor dream—directly

At the mountains and sea. Are they not beautiful?”

—from “De Rerum Virtute”

Tor House and Hawk Tower is the home 

Robinson Jeffers built for himself on the 

shore of Carmel, CA.

American Literary Landmarks
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 33

THE POET

Henry Wadsworth 

Longfellow was born 

on February 27, 1807, 

in Portland, Maine. 

Although his father 

wanted him to become 

a lawyer, Longfellow 

eventually became a 

professor of modern 

languages at Harvard. 

Tragically losing his first 

wife to miscarriage and 

his second wife to a 

fire, Longfellow raised 

his six children in his 

house in Cambridge, 

Massachusetts. His books 

of poetry and translations 

brought him popularity 

and fame during his 

lifetime, and he died at his 

home on March 24, 1882.

The Poetry of Henry 

Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was not only a major 

American poet, but he was also one of the most 

influential figures in our national cultural history. 

His work commanded a readership that is almost 

unimaginable today, even for best-selling novels. 

In unforgettable poetic language that appealed to 

millions of readers across all classes, Longfellow helped 

create many of the songs, stories, characters, and 

images by which the young United States knew itself. 

Longfellow’s greatest gifts were best suited to more 

public poetry—forceful clarity, evocative simplicity, 

emotional directness, and a genius for memorable 

(indeed often unforgettable) phrasing.

THEMES:

grief, love, memory, patriotism, the Revolutionary War, 

slavery, storytelling

FILM ADAPTATIONS:

•	 The Village Blacksmith (1922, directed by John Ford)

•	 Evangeline (1929, starring Dolores del Rio)

•	 Hiawatha (1952, starring Vince Edwards)

PERFORMANCE POSSIBILITIES:

•	 Music by Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904), the Bohemian composer

whose Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”) includes two 

movements inspired by Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha

•	 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast,” a cantata

•	 “The Children’s Hour,” composed by Charles Ives, choreographed

as a ballet by Jerome Robbins

ACCESSIBILITY MATERIALS:

•	 unabridged audio versions available for selected works

•	 large print editions available

•	 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

(NLS) resources available (www.loc.gov/nls/)

“Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time . . .”

— from “A Psalm of Life”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lived at 

Craigie House from 1837 until his death in 

1882. It was where he wrote some of his 

greatest poems.

v
34 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the National Endowment for the AArts 

Through June 2009:

• 	 More than 500 Big Read

grants have been awarded 

to more than 360 different 

cities across all 50 states, 

the District of Columbia, 

Puerto Rico, and the 

Virgin Islands

• 	 More than 21,000

partner organizations 

have supported Big 

Read grantees

• 	 More than two million

people have attended more 

than 17,800 Big Read 

events nationwide

• 	 Statewide Big Reads

have been held in eight 

states (Arkansas, Delaware, 

Hawaii, Montana, Rhode 

Island, Vermont, Virginia, 

and Wyoming) as well as 

in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Statewide Big Reads

WESTern REGION

113 Big Read grants
THE AUTHOR

National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 35

Cities and States Hosting 

Big Read Programs

MIDWESTERN REGION

144 Big Read grants

southERN REGION

178 Big Read grants

NORTHEASTERN REGION

95 Big Read grants

puerto rico/

virgin islands

3 Big Read grants
36 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

ALABAMA

Auburn University

Auburn, AL

Gadsden Cultural Arts 

Foundation

Gadsden, AL

Huntsville-Madison County 

Public Library

Huntsville, AL

Jefferson County Library 

Cooperative

Birmingham, AL

Ozark-Dale County Public 

Library

Ozark, AL

ALASKA

Anchorage Public Library

Anchorage, AK

Kachemak Bay Campus-Kenai 

Peninsula College-University 

of Alaska Anchorage

Homer, AK

Sheldon Museum & Cultural 

Center

Haines, AK

ARIZONA

Phoenix Public Library 

Foundation

Phoenix, AZ

Safford City – Graham County 

Library

Safford, AZ

West Valley Arts Council

Avondale, AZ

ARKANSAS

Arkansas Center for the Book

Little Rock, AR

(statewide)

Fayetteville Public Library

Fayetteville, AR

Ozarka College

Melbourne, AR

CALIFORNIA

Bakersfield Museum of Art

Bakersfield, CA

Berkeley Public Library

Berkeley, CA

Black Storytellers of San Diego

Chula Vista, CA

Cal Poly Pomona Foundation

Pomona, CA

California State University East 

Bay Foundation 

Oakland, CA

City of Los Angeles 

Department of Cultural 

Affairs

Los Angeles, CA

City of Ventura Cultural Affairs 

Division

Ventura, CA

Contra Costa County Library

Pleasant Hill, CA

Corona Public Library

Corona, CA

County of Los Angeles Public 

Library – East Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA

County of Los Angeles Public 

Library – Norwalk

Norwalk, CA

County of Los Angeles Public 

Library – Santa Clarita

Santa Clarita, CA

County of Los Angeles Public 

Library – South Gate

South Gate, CA

Fresno County Public Library

Fresno, CA

Friends of the Encinitas Library

Encinitas, CA

Hayward Public Library

Hayward, CA

The Henry E. Huntington 

Library and Art Gallery

San Marino, CA

Los Medanos College

Pittsburg, CA

Mono County Libraries

Mammoth Lakes, CA

Montalvo Arts Center

Saratoga, CA

National Steinbeck Center

Salinas, CA

Orange County Public Library

Santa Ana, CA

PEN Center USA

Culver City, CA

Peninsula Library System

San Mateo, CA

Pleasanton Public Library

Pleasanton, CA

Rancho Cucamonga Public 

Library Services

Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Riverside Arts Council

Riverside, CA

Robinson Jeffers Tor House 

Foundation

Carmel, CA

Roseville Public Library

Roseville, CA

Rural California Broadcasting 

Corporation/KRCB

Rohnert Park, CA

Shasta Public Libraries

Redding, CA

Stockton-San Joaquin County 

Public Library

Stockton, CA

University of California, 

Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz, CA

University of Redlands

Redlands, CA

Will & Company

Los Angeles, CA

COLORADO

Adams State College

Alamosa, CO

Arapahoe Library Friends 

Foundation

Englewood, CO

Aspen Writers’ Foundation

Aspen, CO

Aurora Public Library

Aurora, CO

Delta County Public Library 

District

Paonia, CO

Garfield County Public Library 

District

Rifle, CO

Pueblo City-County Library 

District

Pueblo, CO

El Centro Su Teatro

Denver, CO

Weld Library District 

Greeley, CO

CONNECTICUT

The City of Norwalk

Norwalk, CT

Hartford Public Library

Hartford, CT

New Britain Museum of 

American Art

New Britain, CT

Norwalk Public Library 

Norwalk, CT

Silas Bronson Library

Waterbury, CT

The City of Bridgeport

Bridgeport, CT

The Mattatuck Historical 

Society

Waterbury, CT

The Big Read Grantees, 2006–2009
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 37

The New Haven International 

Festival of Arts & Ideas

New Haven, CT

DELAWARE

Delaware Division of Libraries

Dover, DE

(statewide)

DISTRICT OF 

COLUMBIA

Humanities Council of 

Washington, DC

Washington, DC

FLORIDA

Alachua County Library 

District

Gainesville, FL

Brevard County Libraries

Cocoa Beach, FL

Communities in Schools of 

Putnam County 

Palatka, FL

Daytona Beach Community 

College/DBCC Public 

Broadcasting

Daytona Beach, FL

Florida Center for the 

Book – Broward Public 

Library Foundation

Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Florida Center for the Literary 

Arts at Miami Dade College

Miami, FL

Hendry County Library 

Cooperative

Clewiston, FL

Jacksonville Public Library 

Foundation

Jacksonville, FL

LeRoy Collins Leon County 

Public Library System

Tallahassee, FL

Marion County Public Library 

System

Ocala, FL

Orange County Library System

Orlando, FL

Pinellas Public Library 

Cooperative

Clearwater, FL

Suwannee River Regional 

Library

Live Oak, FL

Tampa-Hillsborough County 

Public Library Cooperative

Tampa, FL

West Florida Literary 

Federation

Pensacola, FL

Young Performing Artists

Wildwood, FL

GEORGIA

Armstrong Atlantic State 

University

Savannah, GA

Cherokee Regional Library 

System

LaFayette, GA

Cultural Arts Council of 

Douglasville/Douglas County

Douglasville, GA

Georgia College & State 

University

Milledgeville, GA

Golden Isles Arts and 

Humanities Association

Brunswick, GA

The Literary Center at the 

Margaret Mitchell House & 

Museum

Atlanta, GA

Live Oak Public Libraries

Savannah, GA

Muscogee County Friends of 

Libraries

Columbus, GA

National Black Arts Festival

Atlanta, GA

Savannah State University

Savannah, GA

Towne Lake Arts Center

Woodstock, GA

University of Georgia/UGA 

Libraries

Athens, GA

Valdosta State University, 

Odum Library

Valdosta, GA

HAWAII

Hawai’i Capital Cultural 

District

Honolulu, HI

(statewide)

IDAHO

Madison Library District

Rexburg, ID

Marshall Public Library

Pocatello, ID

The Cabin

Boise, ID

ILLINOIS

Acorn Public Library District

Oak Forest, IL

Aurora Public Library

Aurora, IL

Bartlett Public Library District

Bartlett, IL

Beverly Arts Center

Chicago, IL

Champaign Public Library

Champaign, IL

Columbia College Chicago

Chicago, IL

Cook Memorial Public 

Library District

Libertyville, IL

Danville Area Community 

College

Danville, IL

DeKalb Public Library

DeKalb, IL

Fremont Public Library District

Mundelein, IL

Galesburg Public Library

Galesburg, IL

Illinois State Library

Springfield, IL

Oak Park Public Library

Oak Park, IL

Orland Park Public Library

Orland Park, IL

Peoria Public Library

Peoria, IL

Quad City Arts

Rock Island, IL

Rend Lake College

Ina, IL

Sandburg Days Festival

Galesburg, IL

Spoon River College 

Foundation

Canton, IL

Sterling Public Library

Sterling, IL

University of Illinois, Board 

of Trustees

Urbana, IL

INDIANA

Bloomington Area Arts Council

Bloomington, IN

Columbus Area Arts Council

Columbus, IN

Community Foundation of 

Morgan County

Mooresville, IN

Frankfort Community 

Public Library

Frankfort, IN
38 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

Harrison County Public Library

Corydon, IN

Jackson County Public Library

Seymour, IN

Kosciusko Literacy Services

Warsaw, IN

Muncie Public Library

Muncie, IN

New Castle-Henry County 

Public Library

New Castle, IN

TerraFirma

Auburn, IN

Vigo County Public Library

Terre Haute, IN

IOWA

African American Heritage 

Foundation

Cedar Rapids, IA

Ames Public Library

Ames, IA

Carnegie – Stout Public Library

Dubuque, IA

Hometown Perry, Iowa

Perry, IA

Perry Public Library

Perry, IA

Sioux City Public Library

Sioux City, IA

State Historical Society of 

Iowa Library, Department of 

Cultural Affairs

Des Moines, IA

Waukee Public Library

Waukee, IA

KANSAS

Bowlus Fine Arts Center

Iola, KS

Friends of the Dorothy 

Bramlage Public Library

Junction City, KS

Johnson County Library

Overland Park, KS

Johnson County Library

Shawnee Mission, KS

Kansas City, Kansas Public 

Library

Kansas City, KS

Topeka and Shawnee County 

Public Library

Topeka, KS

Wichita Public Library 

Foundation

Wichita, KS

KENTUCKY

Gateway Community and 

Technical College

Park Hills, KY

Kentucky Gateway Museum 

Center

Maysville, KY

Kentucky State University

Frankfort, KY

The Louisville Free Public 

Library Foundation

Louisville, KY

Olive Hill Adult Learning 

Center

Olive Hill, KY

Owensboro Community and 

Technical College

Owensboro, KY

Western Kentucky University 

Foundation

Bowling Green, KY

Williamsburg Action Team

Williamsburg, KY

LOUISIANA

East Baton Rouge Parish 

Library

Baton Rouge, LA

Houma Regional Arts Council

Houma, LA

Performing Arts Society of 

Acadiana

Lafayette, LA

Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society

New Orleans, LA

Southern Food and Beverage 

Museum Foundation

New Orleans, LA

MAINE

Auburn Public Library

Auburn, ME

Maine Writers & Publishers 

Alliance

Portland, ME

Patten Free Library

Bath, ME

Victoria Mansion

Portland, ME

MARYLAND

Annapolis Charter 300 

Committee

Annapolis, MD

College of Southern Maryland

La Plata, MD

Community Foundation of 

Washington County, MD

Hagerstown, MD

Harbel Community 

Organization

Baltimore, MD

MPT Foundation

Owings Mills, MD

Towson University

Towson, MD

Worcester County Library

Snow Hill, MD

MASSACHUSETTS

Amherst College and the Emily 

Dickinson Museum

Amherst, MA

Attleboro Public Library

Attleboro, MA

Longfellow’s Wayside Inn

Sudbury, MA

Pittsfield – Office of Cultural 

Development

Pittsfield, MA

Pocumtuck Valley Memorial 

Association

Deerfield, MA

Shrewsbury Public Library

Shrewsbury, MA

UMass Memorial Health Care

Worcester, MA

University of Massachusetts 

Boston

Boston, MA

MICHIGAN

Arab Community Center for 

Economic and Social Services

Dearborn, MI

Cromaine District Library

Hartland, MI

Detroit Public Library

Detroit, MI

Escanaba Public Library

Escanaba, MI

Genesee District Library

Flint, MI

Grand Rapids Public Library

Grand Rapids, MI

Grand Traverse Band of 

Ottawa and Chippewa 

Indians

Suttons Bay, MI

Ironwood Carnegie Library

Ironwood, MI

Jackson Community College

Jackson, MI

Jackson District Library

Jackson, MI

Little Traverse Bay Bands of 

Odawa Indians

Harbor Springs, MI

The Big Read Grantees, 2006–2009, continued
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 39

The Foundation at Monroe 

County Community College

Monroe, MI

Wayne-Metropolitan 

Community Action Agency

Wyandotte, MI

West Shore Community 

College

Scottville, MI

MINNESOTA

A Center for the Arts

Fergus Falls, MN

Carlton County Historical 

Society

Cloquet, MN

The Givens Foundation for 

African American Literature

Minneapolis, MN

Grand Rapids Area Library

Grand Rapids, MN

The Loft Literary Center

Minneapolis, MN

Marshall – Lyon County 

Library

Marshall, MN

St. Cloud State University, 

College of Education

St. Cloud, MN

MISSISSIPPI

College of Education, 

Mississippi Valley State 

University

Itta Bena, MS

DeSoto Arts Council

Hernando, MS

MS Gulf Coast Community 

College – Jefferson Davis 

Campus

Gulfport, MS

Starkville Reads

Starkville, MS

University of Southern 

Mississippi Department of 

English

Hattiesburg, MS

MISSOURI

Allied Arts Council of 

St. Joseph, MO

St. Joseph, MO

Foundry Art Centre

St. Charles, MO

Juanita K. Hammons Hall for 

the Performing Arts 

Springfield, MO

Park University

Parkville, MO

Washington University in 

St. Louis

St. Louis, MO

West Plains Council on the 

Arts

West Plains, MO

MONTANA

Flathead County Library 

System

Kalispell, MT

Lewis & Clark Library

Helena, MT

Lincoln County Public 

Libraries

Libby, MT

Montana Historical Society

Helena, MT

(statewide)

The Havre-Hill County Library 

Foundation

Havre, MT

YMCA Billings – The Writer’s 

Voice

Billings, MT

NEBRASKA

Omaha Reads

Omaha, NE

Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo

Omaha, NE

Plattsmouth Public Library

Plattsmouth, NE

NEVADA

Churchill County Library

Fallon, NV

Elko County Reading Council, 

Silver State Reading 

Association

Elko, NV

Friends of Washoe County 

Library

Reno, NV

Las Vegas-Clark County 

Library District

Las Vegas, NV

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Center for the Book at the New 

Hampshire State Library

Concord, NH

Northeast Cultural Coop

Amherst, NH

Strawbery Banke Museum

Portsmouth, NH

NEW JERSEY

Burlington County Council, 

Boy Scouts of America

Rancocas, NJ

Caldwell Public Library

Caldwell, NJ

Jersey City Free Public Library

Jersey City, NJ

The Parsippany – Troy Hills 

Public Library System

Parsippany, NJ

United Way of Salem County

Salem, NJ

NEW MEXICO

Bernalillo County

Albuquerque, NM

Friends of the Public Library of 

Silver City

Silver City, NM

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

Santa Fe, NM

High Plains Writing Project

Roswell, NM

Regents of New Mexico State 

University

Las Cruces, NM

The Santa Fe Opera

Santa Fe, NM

NEW YORK

African Voices 

Communications

New York, NY

Bronx Council on the Arts

Bronx, NY

Brooklyn Public Library

Brooklyn, NY

Buffalo & Erie County 

Public Library

Buffalo, NY

Columbia University in the 

City of New York

New York, NY

Dormann Library

Bath, NY

Foothills Performing Arts 

Center

Oneonta, NY

Heermance Memorial Library

Coxsackie, NY

Hudson Area Association 

Library 

Hudson, NY

Just Buffalo Literary Center

Buffalo, NY
40 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

Long Island Arts Council at 

Freeport

Freeport, NY

Long Island Traditions

Port Washington, NY

The Mercantile Library Center 

for Fiction

New York, NY

Monroe County Library System

Rochester, NY

Orange Library Association 

Florida, NY

Poughkeepsie Public Library 

District

Poughkeepsie, NY

Research Foundation of SUNY 

on behalf of SUNY Cortland

Cortland, NY

Research Foundation of SUNY 

on behalf of SUNY Fredonia, 

Reed Library

Fredonia, NY

Research Foundation of SUNY 

on behalf of SUNY New Paltz

New Paltz, NY

Society for the Preservation 

of Weeksville and Bedford 

Stuyvesant

Brooklyn, NY

Southeast Steuben County 

Library

Corning, NY

Upper Hudson Library System

Albany, NY

Westchester Arts Council

White Plains, NY

Wood Library Association

Canandaigua, NY

Writers & Books

Rochester, NY

NORTH CAROLINA

A-B Tech Community College 

Foundation for Together We 

Read

Asheville, NC

Bennett College for Women

Greensboro, NC

Caldwell County Public Library

Lenoir, NC

Forsyth County Public Library

Winston-Salem, NC

Friends of the Cumberland 

County Public Library and 

Information Center

Fayetteville, NC

Iredell Friends of the Library

Statesville, NC

Johnston County Arts Council

Clayton, NC

Lenoir Community College

Kinston, NC

Livingstone College

Salisbury, NC

Montgomery Community 

College

Troy, NC

Pasquotank-Camden Library

Elizabeth City, NC

Piedmont Community College

Roxboro, NC

Public Library of Charlotte & 

Mecklenburg County

Charlotte, NC

Rowan Public Library

Salisbury, NC

Rutherford County Arts 

Council

Forest City, NC

Sonja Haynes Stone Center for 

Black Culture and History

Chapel Hill, NC

The Craven–Pamlico–Carteret 

Regional Library

New Bern, NC

NORTH DAKOTA

Dakota Prairie Regional Center 

for the Arts

New Rockford, ND

Shakespeare Club–Lake Region 

Library

Devils Lake, ND

The Jamestown Arts Center

Jamestown, ND

Turtle Mountain Community 

College

Belcourt, ND

OHIO

Center for Environmental 

Education, Natural History, 

and Conservation

Oxford, OH

Cuyahoga County Public 

Library

Parma, OH

Delaware County District 

Library

Delaware, OH

Greater Columbus Arts Council

Columbus, OH

Hiram College

Hiram, OH

Massillon Museum

Massillon, OH

Newark Public Library

Newark, OH

Northwest State Community 

College

Archbold, OH

Sandusky Library

Sandusky, OH

Southern Ohio Performing Arts 

Association

Portsmouth, OH

Southern State Community 

College Library

Sardinia, OH

Toledo-Lucas County Public 

Library

Toledo, OH

Young Audiences of Northeast 

Ohio

Cleveland, OH

OKLAHOMA 

Lawton Public Library

Lawton, OK

The Pioneer Library System

Norman, OK

Rose State College

Midwest City, OK

Stillwater Public Library

Stillwater, OK

OREGON

Fishtrap

Enterprise, OR

Friends of the St. Helens Public 

Library

St. Helens, OR

Libraries of Eastern Oregon

Fossil, OR

Oregon Alliance for Arts 

Education

Salem, OR

Woodburn Public Library

Woodburn, OR

PENNSYLVANIA

Altoona Area Public Library

Altoona, PA

American Readers Theater

Shohola, PA

Arts Council of Erie

Erie, PA

August Wilson Center for 

African American Culture

Pittsburgh, PA

The Big Read Grantees, 2006–2009, continued
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 41

Easton Area Public Library

Easton, PA

Ephrata Public Library

Ephrata, PA

Franklin Public Library

Franklin, PA

Jump Street

Harrisburg, PA

Kittanning Public Library

Kittanning, PA

Lansdowne Public Library

Lansdowne, PA

Lycoming County Library 

System

Williamsport, PA

Montgomery County 

Community College 

Foundation

Blue Bell, PA

Scranton Public Library

Scranton, PA

Susquehanna County Literacy 

Program

Montrose, PA

PUERTO RICO

Museo de Arte de Ponce

Ponce, PR

RHODE ISLAND

Rhode Island Coalition Against 

Domestic Violence

Warwick, RI

(statewide)

West Bay Collaborative

Warwick, RI

SOUTH CAROLINA

Anderson County Arts Center

Anderson, SC

Benedict College

Columbia, SC

Charleston County Public 

Library

Charleston, SC

Spartanburg County Public 

Libraries

Spartanburg, SC

Sumter County Library

Sumter, SC

SOUTH DAKOTA

Dakota Wesleyan University

Mitchell, SD

South Dakota Center for the 

Book

Brookings, SD

South Dakota Humanities 

Council

Brookings, SD

TENNESSEE

Adventure Science Center

Nashville, TN

The City of Franklin

Franklin, TN

Dixie Carter Performing Arts 

Center

Huntingdon, TN

E.G. Fisher Public Library

Athens, TN

Rhodes College

Memphis, TN

South Central Tennessee 

Workforce Alliance

Columbia, TN

YWCA Knoxville

Knoxville, TN

TEXAS

Communities in Schools 

Southeast Texas

Beaumont, TX

El Paso Public Library

El Paso, TX

Friends of Corpus Christi 

Public Libraries

Corpus Christi, TX

Friends of Marfa Public Library

Marfa, TX

Greater Waco Chamber of 

Commerce/Community 

Development Foundation

Waco, TX

Harris County Public Library

Houston, TX

Houston Library Board

Houston, TX

Huntsville Public Library

Huntsville, TX

Irving Public Library

Irving, TX

Latino Cultural Center, a 

division of the Office of 

Cultural Affairs, City of 

Dallas

Dallas, TX

Mesquite Arts Center

Mesquite, TX

Northeast Lakeview College

Live Oak, TX

San Antonio Public Library 

Foundation

San Antonio, TX

Texas A & M University 

Kingsville

Kingsville, TX

University of Texas at 

Brownsville and Texas 

Southmost College

Brownsville, TX

University of Texas – Pan 

American

Edinburg, TX 

Weatherford College

Weatherford, TX

Wiley College

Marshall, TX

UTAH

Cedar City Public Library

Cedar City, UT

Friends of Salt Lake City Public 

Library

Salt Lake City, UT

Orem Public Library 

Orem, UT

Utah Arts Council

Salt Lake City, UT

VERMONT

Vermont Arts Council

Montpelier, VT

(statewide)

VIRGIN ISLANDS

Virgin Islands Council on 

the Arts

St. Thomas, VI

(statewide)

VIRGINIA 

Amazement Square

Lynchburg, VA

Arlington Cultural Affairs 

Division

Arlington, VA

Barter Theatre

Abingdon, VA

The Community Foundation of 

the Central Blue Ridge

Staunton, VA

Hampton University

Hampton, VA

Lonesome Pine Regional 

Library

Wise, VA

Newport News Public Library 

System

Newport News, VA

Pamunkey Regional Library

Hanover, VA

Piedmont Arts Association

Martinsville, VA
42 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 

Regent University Library

Virginia Beach, VA

Rockingham Library 

Association

Harrisonburg, VA

Virginia Foundation for the 

Humanities

Charlottesville, VA

(statewide)

WASHINGTON

Bainbridge Public Library

Bainbridge Island, WA

King County Library System 

Foundation

Issaquah, WA

North Central Regional Library

Wenatchee, WA

Pat Graney Company

Seattle, WA

Sno-Isle Libraries

Marysville, WA

Spokane Public Library

Spokane, WA

Timberland Regional Library, 

Hoquiam

Hoquiam, WA

Timberland Regional Library, 

Tumwater

Tumwater, WA

Yakima Valley Libraries

Yakima, WA

WEST VIRGINIA

ArtsLink

New Martinsville, WV

Martinsburg-Berkeley County 

Public Libraries

Martinsburg, WV

WISCONSIN

Amery Public Library

Amery, WI

Irvin L. Young Auditorium

Whitewater, WI

Marathon County Public 

Library

Wausau, WI

Mead Public Library

Sheboygan, WI

Menomonie Public Library

Menomonie, WI

Milwaukee Public Library

Milwaukee, WI

Peninsula Players Theatre 

Foundation

Fish Creek, WI

St. Croix Falls Public 

Library/Festival Theatre

St. Croix Falls, WI

University of Wisconsin – 

Eau Claire Center for 

Service-Learning

Eau Claire, WI

University of WisconsinRichland Library

Richland Center, WI

Waukesha Public Library

Waukesha, WI

WYOMING

The Wyoming Center for 

the Book

Cheyenne, WY

(statewide)

The Big Read Grantees, 2006–2009, continued
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 43

IMAGE CREDITS

Cover: All caricatures by John Sherffius for The Big Read. Book covers: The Call of 

the Wild, used by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult 

Publishing Group; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, used by permission of G.P. Putnam’s 

Sons, a division of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.; The Maltese Falcon courtesy of Random 

House, Inc., New York; The Grapes of Wrath courtesy of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 

New York; The Joy Luck Club book cover used by permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 

a division of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.

Dana Gioia photo by Vance Jacobs; Anne-Imelda Radice photo courtesy of IMLS.

Page 2 (Anaya)

Author Photo: Getty Images; Book Cover: Bless Me, Ultima © 1972, used with 

permission of Warner Books, a division of Hachette Book Group, USA

Page 3 (Bradbury)

Author Photo: Getty Images; Book Cover: Fahrenheit 451, used with permission of Del 

Rey/The Random House Ballantine Publishing Group

Page 4 (Cather)

Author Photo: © Condé Nast Archive/CORBIS; Book Cover: My Ántonia, courtesy 

of Viking Books, an imprint of The Knopf Group, a division of Random House, Inc., 

New York

Page 5 (Erdrich)

Author Photo: © Bettina Strauss, courtesy of HarperCollins; Book Cover: Love 

Medicine courtesy of HarperCollins

Page 6 (Fitzgerald)

Author Photo: Getty Images; Book Cover: The Great Gatsby, cover painting by Francis 

Cugat, courtesy of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group

Page 7 (Gaines)

Author Photo: Steven Forster; Book Cover: A Lesson Before Dying, photograph © 1930 

by Doris Ulmann from the collection of the New York Historical Society, courtesy of 

Vintage Contemporaries, a division of Random House, Inc., New York

Page 8 (Hammett)

Author Photo: Julie Rivett; Book Cover: The Maltese Falcon, courtesy of Random 

House, Inc., New York

Page 9 (Hemingway)

Author Photo: © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS; Book Cover: A Farewell 

to Arms, used by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult 

Publishing Group

Page 10 (Hurston)

Author Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division; Book Cover: 

Their Eyes Were Watching God, courtesy of HarperCollins

Page 11 (James)

Author Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division; Book Cover: 

Washington Square, used by permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin 

Group (USA), Inc.

Page 12 (Lee)

Author Photo: © Bettmann/CORBIS; Book Cover: To Kill a Mockingbird, photograph 

by John Montgomery, courtesy of HarperCollins

Page 13 (Le Guin)

Author Photo: © Marian Wood Kolisch; Book Cover: A Wizard of Earthsea, courtesy 

of Random House, Inc., New York

Page 14 (London)

Author Photo: California Historical Society, FN-13123, VIP05301; Book Cover: The

Call of the Wild, used by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult

Publishing Group

Page 15 (Mahfouz)

Author Photo: Courtesy of The American University in Cairo Press; Book Cover: 

The Thief and the Dogs courtesy of Vintage and Anchor Books, a division of Random 

House, Inc., New York

Page 16 (McCullers)

Author Photo: © Bettmann/CORBIS; Book Cover: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, 

photograph of Carson McCullers © 1946 Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum 

Photos, Inc., courtesy of Mariner Books, a division of Houghton Mifflin Company, 

New York

Page 17 (O’Brien)

Author Photo: © Marion Ettlinger, courtesy of Houghton Mifflin; Book Cover: 

The Things They Carried courtesy of Broadway Books, a division of Random House, 

Inc., New York

Page 18 (Ozick)

Author Photo: Nancy Crampton, courtesy of Houghton Mifflin; Book Cover: 

The Shawl, courtesy of Vintage International, a division of Random House, Inc., 

New York

Page 19 (Poe) 

Author Photo: The Edgar Allan Poe Museum; Book Cover: Great Tales and Poems 

of Edgar Allan Poe courtesy of Pocket Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 

New York

Page 20 (Robinson)

Author Photo: Nancy Crampton, courtesy of Picador; Book Cover: Housekeeping, 

photograph by Scott Tysick/Masterfile, courtesy of Picador, New York

Page 21 (Steinbeck)

Author Photo: © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS; Book Cover: The Grapes of 

Wrath, courtesy of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., New York

Page 22 (Tan)

Author Photo: © Robert Foothorap; Book Cover: The Joy Luck Club, used by 

permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.

Page 23 (Tolstoy)

Author Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division; Book Cover: 

The Death of Ivan Ilyich, courtesy of Random House, Inc., New York

Page 24 (Twain)

Author Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division; Book Cover: 

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, used by permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a 

division of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.

Page 25 (Wharton)

Author Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division; Book Cover: 

The Age of Innocence, courtesy of Modern Library, a division of Random House, 

Inc., New York

Page 26–27 (Wilder)

Author Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division; Book Cover: 

The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Our Town courtesy of Harper Perennial, an imprint 

of HarperCollins

Page 28 (Wolff)

Author Photo: Giliola Christe; Book Cover: Old School, photograph courtesy of 

Tobias Wolff, courtesy of Vintage Contemporaries, a division of Random House, 

Inc., New York

Page 29 (Sun, Stone, and Shadows)

Book Cover: Sun, Stone, and Shadows courtesy of Fondo de Cultura 

Económica, USA

Page 31 (Dickinson)

Author Photo: Courtesy of Amherst College Archives & Special Collections; 

Landmark Photo: The Emily Dickinson Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts

Page 32 (Jeffers)

Author Photo: © Nat Farbman/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images; Landmark 

Photo: © Horace Lyon, courtesy of the Tor House Foundation

Page 33 (Longfellow)

Author Photo: Courtesy of the Longfellow National Historic Site; Landmark 

Photos: Craigie-Longfellow House, courtesy of the Longfellow National 

Historic Site
This publication is published by:

National Endowment for the Arts

Office of Communications

Victoria Hutter, Acting Director

Don Ball, Publications Manager/Editor

Written by the NEA Literature Office

Designed by:

Fletcher Design, Washington DC

Voice/TTY: (202) 682-5496

For individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

Individuals who do not use conventional print may contact the Arts 

Endowment’s Office for AccessAbility to obtain this publication in an 

alternate format. Telephone: (202) 682-5532

Additional copies of this publication can be obtained free of charge by the 

contacting the NEA Web site: www.arts.gov. 

National Endowment for the Arts

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20506-0001

(202) 682-5400

This publication was printed on recycled paper.
“The concept combines local leadership with 

national-caliber materials. . . . [Chairman] Gioia 

likes to cite the example of librarian Marie Pyko of 

Topeka, Kansas, whose Big Read efforts around 

Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God had 

the participation of beauty salons, churches, 

and blogging students. What the NEA puts into 

the effort is the promotional and educational 

power. . . . There are guidebooks for readers and 

teachers for the books selected by the NEA’s team 

of 22 independent literary experts and specialists.”

––CNN, June 2006

“Industries and governors have complained that 

Americans are reading less just when today’s jobs 

call for people who read better. The National 

Endowment for the Arts, which organized the 

Big Read projects, believes that people who 

read more will make better citizens.”

––Washington Post, March 2006
A Great Nation Deserves Great Art.

National Endowment for the Arts

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW`

Washington, DC 20506-0001

(202) 682-5400

www.NEABigRead.org 

Not for sale––Available for free at www.arts.gov