Mayor's Book Club - Keep Austin Reading
Since 2002, the Humanities Institute, in partnership with the Mayor's Office and the Austin Public Library, has been bringing readers together from throughout the community to read a common book and participate in public discussions about it. Humanities Institute faculty, staff, and noted Austin citizens lead these conversations at branch libraries across the city as part of a month-long series of events, including discussion panels, films, and exhibitions addressing the themes and issues explored in the selected book. When possible, the annual events lineup includes a visit by the author of the Mayor's Book Club selection.
2008 Mayor's Book Club - A Long Way Gone
This spring the Humanities Institute continues its annual partnership with the Office of the Mayor and the Austin Public Library to sponsor the citywide reading and discussion of a single book. The seventh annual Mayor’s Book Club choice is A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), a gripping first-person account of the experience of a child soldier in Sierra Leone’s civil war. Author Ishmael Beah describes the terrifying attack on his village, his wanderings, capture, and conscription as a fighter at age 12, and his eventual rescue and detoxification in a UNICEF rehabilitation center where he struggled to regain his humanity and re-enter the civilian world.
For further information or questions, please contact the Institute at (512) 471-2654 or community@humanitiesinstitute.utexas.edu.