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One Book – One Lincoln – 2012 – Finalists

One Book - One Lincoln One Book – One Lincoln
Here were the three finalists for 2012!
The winning title was announced September 10th!

Join us in reading Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic
Visit the official 2012 One Book – One Lincoln site!

Would you like to be kept up-to-date on One Book – One Lincoln news, and receive reminders about upcoming One Book – One Lincoln programming events? Would your book group or organization like a library staff member to facilitate a One Book – One Lincoln discussion?

If your answer to either of these questions is “yes,” then please visit our sign-up form, and check off the appropriate boxes. Or, you may call the Lincoln City Libraries’ One Book – One Lincoln staff contact at 441-8529.

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You can also add the One Book – One Lincoln blog to your RSS feeds to receive updates about One Book events, and to participate in online discussions about the One Book title(s) and special programming events. If you’re on Facebook, we encourage you to click “like” to join the One Book – One Lincoln Facebook group (at right!).




Discussion Opportunities and Promotional Spots

Preview discussions are being held at various Lincoln locations during June, featuring members of the One Book – One Lincoln Selection Committee. Committee members and a Lincoln City Libraries staff member will be on hand to talk about their experience serving on the committee, and about the three finalists. Ballots will be available so that attendees can submit their vote for the 2012 One Book – One Lincoln selection. Dates and locations will be listed below:

  • Barnes & Noble Booksellers – Southpointe Pavilions Shopping Center, Wednesday, June 6, 2012, 6:00 p.m.
  • The University Bookstore – Lower Level Nebraska Union, 14th and “R” St., Thursday, June 7, 2012, Noon
  • Indigo Bridge Bookstore, 701 P St., Haymarket., Sunday, June 17th, 2012, 2:00 p.m.
  • A Novel Idea Bookstore – 118 N. 14th St., Tuesday, June 19th, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
  • Barnes & Noble Booksellers – 50th and “O” St., Thursday, June 21st, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

The One Book finalists will be discussed by library staff on the following radio stations and dates:

  • 91.1 FM – NET Radio – “Friday Live” episode, Friday, June 1, 9:00 a.m.
  • 1240 AM – KFOR Problems and Solutions – “Book Chat” episode, date t.b.a., 9:00 a.m.

Library staff will also be at the market booths at the following outdoor Lincoln events, answering questions about One Book – One Lincoln, the Summer Reading Programs and other library topics:

  • Jazz in June, Tuesday, June 5, 5:00 – 8:45 p.m.
  • Jazz in June, Tuesday, June 26, 5:00 – 8:45 p.m.


Earlier this year, we accepted your nominations for our eleventh annual One Book – One Lincoln title, via drop boxes at all the libraries and here on this Web site. All of your suggestions were forwarded to a special One Book – One Lincoln committee, comprised of representatives throughout the community, which evaluated all the 194 nominated titles to choose the group of three finalists below — two fiction, one non-fiction. This group of finalists was announced at a live event, sponsored by the Foundation for Lincoln City Libraries, at The Mill in the Haymarket on May 28th, as well as on the library web site. This year, you can attend preview discussions of the three finalists and vote (through July 31st, both online and at the libraries) for which book you’d like to see as this year’s selected One Book – One Lincoln title. In the meantime, the libraries have ordered additional copies of all of these titles, and we encourage you to read any or all of the three finalists and watch the Lincoln Journal Star, Facebook and this web site for further developments on One Book – One Lincoln – 2012.

And the three finalists for 2012 were…

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
by Candice Millard [364.152 Mil]

James Abram Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turmoil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power — over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his condition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history.

—  The official website for the book Destiny of the Republic and author Candice Millard  —

[Destiny of the Republic is available in the following formats: Book, Book Club in a Bag, Large Type Book, Book-on-CD, Downloadable Audiobook and E-book.]



The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise
by Julia Stuart

Set in the popular tourist attraction in present-day London, The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise is an exquisite story of love, loss, and a one-hundred-eighty-one-year-old pet. Balthazar Jones has lived and worked in the Tower of London for the past eight years. Being a Beefeater is no easy job, and when Balthazar is tasked with setting up an elaborate menagerie of the many exotic animals gifted to the Queen, life at the Tower gets all the more interesting. Penguins escape, giraffes go missing, and the Komodo dragon sends innocent tourists running for their lives. Still, that chaos is nothing compared to what happens when his wife, Hebe, makes a surprise announcement. What’s a Beefeater to do?.

—  Publisher’s website for the novel The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise and author Lisa Stuart  —

[The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise is available in the following formats: Book, Book Club in a Bag, Large Type Book, Downloadable Audiobook and E-book.]



The Submission
by Amy Waldman

A jury gathers in Manhattan to select a memorial for the victims of a devastating terrorist attack. Their fraught deliberations complete, the jurors open the envelope containing the anonymous winner’s name — and discover he is an American Muslim. Instantly they are cast into roiling debate about the claims of grief, the ambiguities of art, and the meaning of Islam. Their conflicted response is only a preamble to the country’s. The memorial’s designer is an enigmatic, ambitious architect named Mohammad “Mo” Khan. His fiercest defender on the jury is its sole widow, the self-possessed and mediagenic Claire Burwell. But when the news of his selection leaks to the press, she finds herself under pressure from outraged family members and in collision with hungry journalists, wary activists, opportunistic politicians, fellow jurors, and Khan himself — as unknowable as he is gifted. In the fight for both advantage and their ideals, all will bring the emotional weight of their own histories to bear on the urgent question of how to remember, and understand, a national tragedy. In this deeply humane novel, the breadth of Amy Waldman’s cast of characters is matched by her startling ability to conjure their perspectives. A striking portrait of a fractured city striving to make itself whole, The Submission is a piercing and resonant novel by an important new talent.

—  The official website for the novel The Submission and author Amy Waldman (no longer available)  —

[The Submission is available in the following formats: Book, Book Club in a Bag, Large Type Book, Book-on-CD, and Downloadable Audiobook. This title is NOT currently available as an E-book through the libraries.]



Because you asked…

The master list of suggested titles presented to the selection committee was whittled down to 9 before the final three (above) were selected. Because readers have been curious, here are the other six titles that made the top nine (in alphabetical order by author):

Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb cover image The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb: A Novel
by Melanie Benjamin

Although she was only two feet, eight inches tall, Mercy Lavinia Bump became legendary by joining P. T. Barnum and marrying tiny superstar Tom Thumb.


The Big Burn cover image The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America
by Timothy Egan [Biography Roosevelt]

Narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire of August, 1910, and Teddy Roosevelt’s pioneering conservation efforts that helped turn public opinion permanently in favor of the forests, though it changed the mission of the forest service with consequences felt in the fires of today.


The Art of Fielding The Art of Fielding: A Novel
by Chad Harbach

A baseball star at a small college near Lake Michigan launches a routine throw that goes disastrously off course and inadvertently changes the lives of five people, including the college president, a gay teammate and the president’s daughter.


Unbroken cover image Unbroken: A WWII Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption
by Laura Hillenbrand [Biography Zamperini]

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared — Lt. Louis Zamperini. Captured by the Japanese and driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor.


In the Garden of Beasts cover image In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin
by Erik Larson [943.086 Lar]

The bestselling author of “Devil in the White City” turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power. The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.


The Shadow of the Wind cover image The Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A boy named Daniel selects a novel from a library of rare books, enjoying it so much that he searches for the rest of the author’s works, only to discover that someone is destroying every book the author has ever written.


Book Club in a Bag!

Book Clubs and organizations now have the ability to check out several popular titles, including the five 2010 One Book finalists below, in a book club format. For each title, the Book Club in a Bag will contain 10 copies of that book as well as some starter discussion questions. Book Club in a Bag selections will be able to be checked out for 8 weeks but with no renewals. You can find out what additional titles are available in the Book Club in a Bag program by searching in the library catalog under Subject: Book Club in a Bag. New titles will be added to this service on a regular basis.


Interested in past years’ One Book – One Lincoln selections?

Visit our main One Book – One Lincoln archive site
See a master list of all the nominees for One Book – One Lincoln from 2002 to 2016 [in .pdf format]

A list of what other communities are reading for similar programs can be found on the One Book Reading Promotion Projects page on the Library of Congress Center for the Book Web site.


One Book – One Lincoln is a community reading program sponsored by Lincoln City Libraries. The program encourages all adults in Lincoln and Lancaster County to read and discuss the same book at the same time. The goal of the program is to encourage reading and dialogue by creating a community wide reading and discussion experience.