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Which of the finalists have you enjoyed the most?

One Book - One LincolnIt’s now been over a month since the five 2008 One Book — One Lincoln finalists were announced, and we’ve had a run on all five titles throughout the libraries. Obviously, folks are reading as many of the titles as they can get their hands on!

That’s great, but we want to hear from you, too. Of the titles on the finalists list that you’ve had a chance to sample, which has been your favorite? And why?

Let us know what you thought of the One Book committee’s selections. Good choices or bad? Did your suggestion make the final cut?

Preview Discussions 2008

One Book - One LincolnYou will be able to join members of the One Book — One Lincoln Selection Committee for preview discussions of the 2008 finalists, and how those titles were selected, at the following locations in July and August:

  • Bluestem Books – 137 S. 9th St., Saturday, July 26, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
  • Lee Booksellers – Edgewood Shopping Center, Sunday, July 27, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
  • A Novel Idea Bookstore – 118 N. 14th St., Tuesday, July 29, 7:00-8:00 p.m.
  • Barnes & Noble Booksellers – 50th and “O” St., Thursday, July 31, 7:00-8:00 p.m.
  • Barnes & Noble Booksellers – Southpointe Pavilions Shopping Center, Sunday, August 3, 2:00-3:00 p.m.

‘Casting About Podcast – The Five Finalists 2008

A special episode of the library’s ‘Casting About podcast series was recently recorded, featuring staff members Lisa and Marcy and One Book – One Lincoln selection committee member Gloria Strope talking about this year’s five finalists and the whole process the committee goes through when selecting the finalist titles.

That episode is now available, and you can find it at — ‘Casting About Program 8, along with numerous other episodes of ‘Casting About (a weekly book review series), and recordings of recent booktalks.

The Five Finalists for 2008 are announced

The five finalists for the 2008 One Book – One Lincoln community reading program were announced to the public in the Lincoln Journal Star and on the libraries’ web site today. Those titles are:

doublebindDouble Bind
by Chris Bohjalian

When college sophomore Laurel Estabrook is attacked while riding her bicycle through Vermont’s back roads, her life is forever changed. Formerly outgoing, Laurel withdraws into her photography and begins to work at a homeless shelter. There she meets Bobbie Crocker, a man with a history of mental illness and a box of photographs that he won’t let anyone see. When Bobbie dies suddenly, Laurel discovers that he was telling the truth: before he was homeless, Bobbie Crocker was a successful photographer who had indeed worked with such legends as Chuck Berry, Robert Frost, and Eartha Kitt. As Laurel’s fascination with Bobbie’s former life begins to merge into obsession, she becomes convinced that some of his photographs reveal a deeply hidden, dark family secret. Her search for the truth will lead her further from her old life – and into a cat-and-mouse game with pursuers who claim they want to save her.

memoryofrunningThe Memory of Running
by Ron McLarty

Meet Smithson “Smithy” Ide, an overweight, friendless, chain-smoking, forty-three-year-old drunk who works as a quality control inspector at a toy-action-figure factory in Rhode Island. By all accounts, especially Smithy’s own, he’s a loser. Then, within the span of one week, his beloved parents are killed in a car crash, and Smithy learns that his emotionally troubled, long-lost sister, Bethany, has turned up in a morgue in Los Angeles. Unmoored by the loss of his entire family – Smithy had always hoped Bethany might return – he rolls down the driveway of his parents’ house on his old Raleigh bicycle into an epic journey that will take him clear across the country. As Smithy pedals across America – through New York City, St. Louis, Denver, and Phoenix, to name a few – he encounters humanity at its best and worst and begins to remember an early life that too many beers have blotted out. The baseball games, the home-cooked meals, the soothing presence of his salt-of-the-earth parents; none of it could transform the dark truth of his sister’s madness.

threecupsofteaThree Cups of Tea
by Greg Mortenson [915.491 Mor]

One day in 1993, high up in the world’s most inhospitable mountains, Greg Mortenson wandered lost and alone, broken in body and spirit, after a failed attempt to climb K2, the world’s deadliest peak. When the people of an impoverished village in Pakistan’s Karakoram Himalaya took him in and nursed him back to health, Mortenson made an impulsive promise: He would return one day and build them a school. Although he was a homeless “climbing bum” living out of his aging Buick in Berkeley, California, Mortenson sold what few possessions he had to launch one of the most remarkable humanitarian campaigns of our time. Three Cups of Tea traces Mortenson’s decade-long odyssey to build schools, especially for girls, throughout the region that gave birth to the Taliban and sanctuary to Al Qaeda. While he wages war with the root causes of terrorism – poverty and ignorance – by providing both girls and boys with a balanced, nonextremist education, Mortenson must survive a kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, death threats from Americans who consider him a traitor, and wrenching separations from his family. Today, as the director of the Central Asia Institute, Mortenson has built fifty-five schools serving Pakistan and Afghanistan’s poorest communities. And as this real-life Indiana Jones from Montana crisscrosses the Himalaya and the Hindu Kush fighting to keep these schools functioning, he provides not only hope to tens of thousands of children, but living proof that one passionately dedicated person truly can change the world.

thirteenthtaleThe Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield

The enigmatic Vida Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself – all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter’s story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission. As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire. Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida’s storytelling but remains suspicious of the author’s sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

bookthiefThe Book Thief
by Markus Zusak

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery… Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist — books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau. This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

The final, winning selection from among these titles will be announced on September 8th, 2008.

Please feel free to leave a comment relating your opinion of these finalists here on the OBOL Blog!

Looking forward to 2008

One Book - One LincolnKeeping in mind that this is purely “unofficial” until our nomination form is made available, we encourage you to respond here in the One Book Blog with any recommendations of books you think would be interesting titles for use in upcoming One Book One Lincoln activities.

[Just remember — you’ll still need to officially submit such titles once the nomination process actually begins!]