CHOOSE A LANGUAGE BELOW

LÁGRIMAS: POEMS OF JOY AND SADNESS

A photo of Nasario García, age 6 on a horse, along side an image of the Lágrimas book cover

By Nasario García
“I was fascinated by rural life in the desert where the landscape, the sky, the animals, the birds, and the people brought both happiness and sorrow to my heart, but at the same time each one inveigled my imagination.”

INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH

Book cover for "Into the Beautiful North" by Luis Alberto Urrea. Features a composite image of a black and white portrait of a woman with illustrated botanicals. Collage of the Into the Beautiful North book cover and National Endowment for the Arts Big Read logo

By Ann Bentley
“What do you think of when you hear ‘book club’? Middle aged women discussing the latest literary fiction or, maybe chick lit, novel, while drinking wine of course. Or maybe you think of retirees, discussing the latest John Grisham or C.J. Box novel. You probably don’t think of inmates discussing the plot line of any novel; much less bring up the plot device of ‘the hand of God’ also known as ‘Deus ex machina.'”

HEMINGWAY

Black and white photo of Ernest Hemingway sitting on a boat

By Michael Privett
“For me, the Hemingway work that stuck was The Old Man and The Sea. I was stunned at its raw emotion, specifically Hemingway’s ability to depict a man fiercely at war with the natural world. I struggled with the symbolism; was the fish really a fish, or a metaphor? Did the boy represent the hubris of youth and the Old Man, God?”

WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS: TIMELESS WISDOM

Portrait of George Washington

By Brandon Johnson
“Washington understood the dangers of locating too much political power in too few hands for too long, and in the end refused the temptations of an endless presidency. He opted to make way for someone new.”