There's still plenty of time to read this year's One Read book, "Nomadland," before September.
That's good, because you won't want to miss the many events in the works across Fulton and beyond. Members of the One Read Task Force met Wednesday morning to discuss this year's plans.
Each year, the libraries in the Daniel Boone Regional Library system team up with area colleges and businesses for a community-wide book club. In the event's 18th year, the chosen book is Jessica Bruder's "Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century."
Following the Great Recession, a growing number of older adults have taken to the roads as travelling workers. "Nomadland" tells their stories and examines how the American economy got to this point.
"I had one interaction with a patron who said, 'I don't know, this doesn't look like happy summer reading,'" DBRL librarian Kat Stone Underwood said. "He said he'd wait to read it 'til fall."
While many of the details of the book are sad and grim - people well past retirement age pushing their failing bodies to complete grueling physical labor for little pay - the book has a hopeful tone, task force members noted. Some of the workers Bruder follows embrace the freedom they feel life on the road offers. Others find community with their fellow travellers.
The book is no slog through research, either.
"Some people think this will be heavy reading, but I was able to finish it in a single day," Rebecca Morgan, of Well Read Books, said.
Well Read has plenty of copies available, as does Callaway County Public Library and Holts Summit Public Library. The two libraries also have digital and audio formats.
This year's events are still being nailed down, but here's the agenda so far.
A flash fiction contents, with stories being accepted Sept. 3-27. "We're thinking that the whole story has to take place in a single room," Underwood said.
An art exhibit, "Travelers," to display at Orr Street Studios in Columbia from Sept. 1-28.
A book discussion Sept. 5 at CCPL.
A talk by William Woods University's Matt Dube on "Nomads on the road" at 4 p.m. Sept. 9.
Author visit at 7 p.m. Sept. 24 at Columbia College (streamed to CCPL)
A talk by Dube on "What makes intentional community work" at 7 p.m. Sept. 26.
More details and event announcements are forthcoming. Visit oneread.dbrl.org to learn more.