Long Island Reads 2008 Evaluation

Long Island Reads 2008 Evaluation

Have you read Aloft?	Yes: 79
	No: 22		Do you plan to?		Yes: 16
					No: 1
Have you visited the Long Island Reads website at www.longislandreads.org?	Yes: 19
	No: 80
How did you obtain your ticket?	Called myself: 45
	From a friend: 16
	From my Library: 15
	Took a chance-came without a ticket: 1
	Other: 10. (4 from Long Island Reads related events.)
Please let us know what you thought about today’s program.	Positive: 47
	Negative: 2 (complained about time)
Have you participated in any Long Island Reads events in the past?	Yes: 48			2007: 16
				2006: 4
				2005: 4
				2004: 6
				2003: 3
				2002: 9
	No: 51
Are you in a Book Club?	Yes: 61
	No: 39
Are you a library employee?		Yes: 13
		No: 86
Do you reside in		Nassau: 49
		Suffolk: 32

7. If you would like to suggest an author or title for Long Island Reads 2009, please do so below. Please let us know why you think this would be a good choice.

Author	Title	Reason
DeMille, Nelson	The Gold Coast	He’s a very colorful guy.
Diaz, Junot	The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Felsenthal, Carol	Alice Roosevelt Longworth	It’s about Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter. They were L.I. residents.
Flinn, Alex		Well known young adult author – born in Syosset L.I.
Gladwell, Malcolm	The Tipping Point
Goodwin, Doris Kearns	No Ordinary Time
Gruen, Sara	Water for Elephants
Hirsi Ali, Ayaan	Infidel	Very informative about the Muslim religion.
Hosseini, Khaled	A Thousand Splendid Suns
	The Kite Runner	Excellent story and very significant in today’s world.
Irving, John		Lives on L.I. – books are great; a few take place at the East End, e.g. A Widow for One Year.
Khadra, Yasmina	Attack
King, Stephen	Duma Key	He rocks.
Landvik, Lorna	Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons	Explores choices women have to make.
Matherson, Robert	Scandal at the Oak Beach Inn	I used to go there by motorcycle, meet friends, and socialize. …It brings back memories and sheds a new light on the bar scene during this era.
McDermott, Alice	Charming Billy	Another L.I. story, accessible, well-written.
Miller, Sue	The Senator’s Wife
Mitchell, Ellen	Beyond Tears	It’s about L.I. families and how they cope with tragedy.
Moorehead, Caroline	Iris Origo	Her life was very interesting.
Picoult, Jodi	My Sister’s Keeper	Interesting and thought provoking themes.
Reichl, Ruth	Garlic and Sapphires
Russo, Richard		His knowledge of N.Y. State.
Silber, Joan	Ideas of Heaven
Ventura, Jesse	Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me	A fresh perspective in politics and the world in general from one of America’s most popular political figures.
Walls, Jeannette	The Glass Castle
Also, Edward Albee, Isabel Allende, Margaret Drabble, Jon Katz, Faye Kellerman, James Patterson, Richard North Patterson, Marge Piercy, Anita Shreve, Nicholas Sparks, Paul Theroux, Ira Wood

101 people participated in the survey.

One Wiki, coming up

Diane has put up a wiki for committee members to discuss the potential 2009 LI Reads titles. Committee members will receive the URL on the listserv. This is for committee members to "talk amongst ourselves", and is not for general viewing. That's what this blog is for!
The picture was just put there to get your attention.

May 21st LI Reads Committee meeting

Well, the first list is in. Under consideration for 2009's "One Island, One Book" title are:
19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult
Skylight Confession by Alice Hoffman
The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
Wait Til Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin
After This by Alice McDermott
River of Doubt by Candice Millard
The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman
A yet-to-be chosen title (one of two possibilities) by Meg Wolitzer. This will be posted as soon as I know which title we are going to consider.

Please feel free to comment on any or all of these choices. As you can see, we will choose a woman author this year. Final selection will depend on several factors, including the availability of the title in various formats, and the availability of the author to speak to Long Island readers during National Library Week (or thereabouts). It's not too onerous a task to read the candidates this year, which is a very good thing!

Finally, thanks again to all who actively participated in LI Reads for 2008. It was a successful year, I think, and proof that "many hands make light work"-so cheers to you!

The next committe meeting is scheduled for July 15th at West Islip.

The Big Event!

The Long Island Reads author event this past Saturday at the Farmingdale Public Library was absolutely awesome. Professor Lee was warm, charming, patient, and a wonderful speaker. The audience eagerly listened to a reading from the book and then asked very meaty questions. Thanks to all who worked on and attended the event. Professor Lee is pictured at right with several members of the Long Island Reads committee. On to Long Island Reads 2009!!!

Yay Chang-rae Lee!!!

Yesterday's author event was a great success! I've been looking over the evaluation sheets, and I'm not sure which descriptor was used more often-"Great" or "Excellent"! Prof. Lee was charming, the audience was intelligent, the snacks were good and the coffee was delish.
Congrats to everyone on the committee, especially Deb Cunningham, who pulls it all together. But this truly is a case of many hands making light work-we had enough volunteers there to, for example, distribute programs and evaluation sheets and bookmarks in no time flat, and then collect them all at the end of the program in the same amount of time.
What a great day-thanks to you all!

Chang-rae Lee at Farmingdale Public Library

This Saturday, April 12, author Chang-rae Lee will give a talk on and sign copies of his book, Aloft, the Long Island Reads Committee's 2008 pick for One Island, One Book.
Although tickets have been distributed, there may be some seats left for non-ticket holders on a first-come, first-served basis.
The program begins at 2PM at the Farmingdale Public Library (for directions, click here).
Hope to see you there!

More About Aloft

The Google Book page about Aloft has links to many, many resources about the book and Chang Rae Lee : reviews, blog entries, articles, profiles and more. It's like one-stop shopping.

Podcast

I thought the podcast was very interesting. Thank you, Peter Ward! I've loaded it onto one of our i-Pod shuffles.

Chang Rae Lee Podcast

Click here to hear the podcast of an interview of Chang Rae Lee by Peter Ward, director of the Lindenhurst Public Library.

Reader's Guide

The Reader's Guide for Aloft can be found here!

We're Famous!

This year's Long Island Reads project recently got some nice publicity in Newsday recently, courtesy of Aileen Jacobson, a Newsday reporter.

Here's the story... with apologies to Newsday for the cut and paste rather than a link:


Reading program selects next book
Aileen Jacobson
Newsday
(Combined editions)
Long Island, N.Y.: Oct 25, 2007. pg. A.34

Want to get a flying head start on the coming year's Long Island Reads selection? It's "Aloft," Chang-Rae Lee's 2000 novel about a Long Island widower and retired landscape contractor who glides through the sky solo in his small airplane as he deals with family problems on earth.

Lee teaches at Princeton University, although at the moment he's on sabbatical in Hawaii while writing another book, said Diane Eidelman, adult services coordinator for the Suffolk Cooperative Library System and one of the leaders of Long Island Reads. But by coincidence, Eidelman said, he'll be back East just as the Nassau and Suffolk library systems are launching the program, and he's agreed to come to the Farmingdale Public Library on April 12, 2008, to talk about his book. Local libraries will host events related to "Aloft" during April.

Last year, when James McBride, author of "The Color of Water," came to speak, "tickets went fast," Eidelman said. Some libraries are considering giving away "Aloft" copies, so readers can get them signed in April. It's available as a free audiobook at Suffolkwave.org.

"This book was selected because it's very Long Island, and it had wonderful reviews," she said. The South Korean-born Lee, who immigrated when he was young, was named by The New Yorker as one of its 20 writers for the 21st century. Comments are welcome at longislandreads.blogspot.com. There's also more information at longislandreads.org.

Facebook

Are you on Facebook? Join the new Long Island Reads group there.

It Only Looks Easy...A Look at the Process of Picking "The Book"

Here's a link to a New York Times article detailing the difficulties involved in picking a "the book" for a community reading program. Interestingly, James McBride (last year's Long Island Reads author) and Chang Rae Lee (this year's author) were among the contenders in 2002 when New York City launched a city-wide reading initiative .

Do Something Good For The World With All Those Words In Your Head

A Halloween treat for you today:

FREE RICE

What is Everyone Else Reading?

Thanks to Nancy Pearl, the librarian's librarian, the idea of community reading projects has spread across the country. Here's a look at what other community reading groups are perusing and discussing, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to talk to one of the librarians on the Omaha Reads committee...I was able to pick her out of a crowd because she was wearing an Omaha Reads "concert tour" T shirt, featuring a photo of the Omaha reads author and the dates of his public readings, while she was in NYC. That's dedication for you.