NORTH READING READS 2003

 Here are highlights from North Reading Reads 2003:

Here's what some participants shared with us about their experiences:    

NORTH READING READS 2003 SPONSERS

Thank you to our North Reading Reads sponsors:     

Calling all book groups!  Would your book group would like to read and discuss Travels with Charley?   A discussion guide is available. Please contact the Reference Department if you would like a copy.  We'd also like to be a clearinghouse for local book groups, so that someone new to town looking for a book group will be able to find contact information.

NORTH READING READS 2003 ORGANIZERS:

North Reading High School
Flint Memorial Library
North Reading Book Discussion Club
Friends of the Flint Memorial Library

FACTS ABOUT JOHN STEINBECK
Born: February 27,1902; 132 Central Avenue, Salinas, CA
Graduated from Salinas High School--June 1919 

Attended Stanford University--1919-1925

Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature, 1962
Died in New York, December 20,1968

National Steinbeck Center

As you read, consider these questions:

**How has the country changed since Steinbeck's 1960 trip?
**What are some of the predictions Steinbeck makes? Have they come true?
**Where would you go today to find America?
**What could you learn on a road trip that you couldn't learn in your own backyard?
**Would you have wanted to take this trip with Steinbeck?

Other Books About the Road:
 Travels with a Donkey by Robert Louis Stevenson
 On the Road  by Charles Kuralt
 Blue Highways: A Journey Into America
by William Least Heat Moon
 Old Glory   by Jonathan Raban
 Royal Road to Romance by Richard Halliburton
 Patagonia  by Bruce Chatwin
 Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux
 Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Gelman
  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
  On the Road by Jack Kerouac

From the library's Local History Room:  Ocean to Ocean in a Model A Ford by Robert L. Parker, in which a long-time resident of North Reading describes his cross country trip by automobile in 1933.  The book was published in 1987.

What other books were considered for North Reading Reads 2003?
The two finalists were Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier and Plainsong by Kent Haruf.
Other titles also considered were The Water Is Wide by Pat Conroy, The Orchard by Adele Crockett Robertson,

Mystic River by Dennis Lehane, Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden, Rag and Bone Shop by Robert Cormier,
Here and Nowhere Else by Jane Brox.

Have you read Travels with Charley in Search of America? What did you think of it? Tell us about your favorite road trip.
E-mail Your Comments, Suggestions, Responses

 

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