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Together We Read

Over the next several months the City of Paterson will be engaging
in an extremely exciting experience. Imagine...everyone in the city
reading and discussing the same book!!
That’s what ONE BOOK ONE PATERSON is all about! The National
Endowment for the Arts Big Read program has afforded Paterson the
opportunity to read Ernest J. Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying as a
collective body. The book is the late author’s eighth novel, published
in 1993. It is a fictional work based in part on the life of Willie Francis,
a black teenager sentenced to death twice in Louisiana. There are a
number of significant themes running throughout the novel including:
constructive lying, religion, cynicism and hope, women and femininity,
education and “The Inescapable Path.” All these themes set the tone
for awesome topics of discussion.
Spearheaded by a group of community stakeholders the citizens of
Paterson will partake in a variety of special events planned around
this wonderful novel. Some of the events include book talks, online
discussions, book clubs, theatrical performances, and essay and art
contests.
The book can be borrowed from the Paterson Public Library or
you can receive a copy of your own when you attend the ONE
BOOK ONE PATERSON launch event on Thursday, February 6,
2020 in the Assembly Room of the Danforth Free Public
Library, 250 Broadway, Paterson, NJ 07501.
Community Partners who are interested in hosting a Book Club or
other event should complete the interest survey found here.

Comments

  1. rosiegJanuary 31, 2020 at 4:51 PM

    I'm half way through the book and looking forward to some robust discussions!

    ReplyDelete

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The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has developed a program called the Big Read. The idea is based on a simple question: What if everyone in the city read the same book? No matter who you meet, you’d have something to talk about. We’d all have another layer to add to our shared experiences. It could be amazing to have us all rooting for the same protagonist, puzzling the same plots, enjoying a collective climax--literary climax. I suspect that everyone will come away from the book with slightly different interpretations since we each have our life experiences that will, undoubtable, filter the experience that we have while reading. Those filters are part of what makes reading the same book all the more exciting. Cities all over the nation are participating in the Big Read. Each city has adopted a name and a book. Our name is One Book One Paterson . Our slogan is Turning the page. Our book is A Lesson Before Dying by Earnest Gaines. Participants in the  NEA’s Bi...
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What Say You?

"A Lesson Before Dying is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jefferson, a young black man, is an unwitting party to a liquor store shootout in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to DEATH!!" I believe (My opinion) that unfortunately there are parts of this back story/story that parallels PAINFULLY to many of our Black youth (Social Injustice and etc.) of today, 2020. WAIT I'M ALMOST FINISHED WRITING THIS POST!! Therefore, those are my feelings/interpretation of the story mentioned above. We would like to have you and your friends come on out and join our group discussion (Get a FREE copy of the book) at the Main (See information posted) Library!! By doing so, we could then hear your take on this bone chilling story. What Say YOU?!!! Lewis Cole
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