Vote - One Book One Bloomington and Beyond

Discussion of a single book and the issues therein to encourage literary reading and to build community by encouraging conversation and the sharing of ideas by members of the community.

One Book One Bloomington 2012

Join us in Reading the One Book One Bloomington Selection for 2012

Room
by Emma Donaghue

Jack is a typical five-year-old who enjoys watching TV, reading, and playing games with his Ma. But he has lived all of his life in a single room. The room is his world, shared with his Ma, and occasionally with Old Nick, a mysterious and unnerving nighttime visitor. Told from the perspective of Jack, the novel explores not only survival in captivity but also what happens when captivity ends and the world expands beyond the four walls of Room.

Published in 2010, 341 pages

Read the book.
Reserve a copy at the Library.
Visit your local bookstore.

One Book One Bloomington 2012 Events

Book Discussions

Ex Libris
Barnes & Noble
6:30 p.m., Wednesday, February 15

Books Plus
Monroe County Public Library
2 - 3 p.m., Sunday March 4

Meadowood
3:30 - 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 21

I.U. Library
Slocum Room at the Lilly Library
4:30 - 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 27

Gen to Gen
Bloomington High School North Library
3 - 4 p.m., Thursday, March 29

Bell Trace
2:30 - 3:30 p.m., Thursday, April 5

One Book One Bloomington, Film Series:

Join us in the Monroe County Public Library Auditorium as we take a cinematic look at children raised in extrordinary and unique situations. All films start at 6:30 p.m. Watch for title to be announced at the Library.

Wednesday, March 21
Wednesday, March 28
Wednesday, April 4
Wednesday, April 11

One Book One Bloomington and Beyond is a project of the City of Bloomington Parks and Recreation Department, Indiana University Libraries Bloomington, Monroe County Community School Corporation, and Monroe County Public Library.

www.mcpl.info/onebook

Comments or Questions

2012 Finalists
More about the 2012 finalists:
	Room by Emma Donaghue Jack is a typical five-year-old who enjoys watching TV, reading, and playing games with his Ma. But he has lived all of his life in a single room. The room is his world, shared with his Ma, and occasionally with Old Nick, a mysterious and unnerving nighttime visitor. Told from the perspective of Jack, the novel explores not only survival in captivity but also what happens when captivity ends and the world expands beyond the four walls of Room. Published in 2010, 341 pages Read the book. Reserve a copy at the Library. Visit your local bookstore.

	Hotel On The Corner of Bitter And Sweet by Jamie Ford In Seattle in the 1940s, Henry Lee, a Chinese American boy, meets and falls in love with Keiko Okabe, a Japanese American girl. Separated by Keiko’s internment in Camp Harmony during World War II, the two struggle to maintain contact despite Henry’s father’s prejudice against the Japanese and Seattle’s growing discomfort with its Japanese American population. The novel explores a shameful episode in American history through the lives of two of those affected by the interplay of family and race. Published in 2009, 304 pages Read the book. Reserve a copy at the Library. Visit your local bookstore.

	The Things They Carried by Tim O' Brien Blurring the line between fact and fiction, the collection of stories functions sometimes as memoir, sometimes as novel as it examines the effects of the Vietnam War on those who were called to fight in it. Exploring truths that are not always best revealed by realities, O’Brien’s work uses different perspectives to illuminate the chaotic confusion of ideas about a war that polarized the country. Published in 1990, 272 pages Read the book. Reserve a copy at the Library. Visit your local bookstore.

	The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman Set against the backdrop of a fictional English-language newspaper based in Rome, it celebrates the beloved and endangered role of newspapers but goes beyond with an intimate study of human nature presented in individual chapters examining the lives of the paper’s staffers. This montage provides a picture of the newspaper deemed a "daily report on the idiocy and the brilliance of the species" and examines the disillusion in everyday life as much as the dissolution of an industry. Published in 2009, 320 pages. Read the book. Reserve a copy at the Library. Visit your local bookstore.

	Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork Marcelo Sandoval hears music no one else can hear--part of the autism-like impairment no doctor has been able to identify. When he goes to work in the mailroom of his father’s firm, he learns about competition, jealousy, anger and desire. Reminiscent of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in the intensity and purity of its voice, the novel is a love story, a legal drama, and a celebration of the music each of us hears inside. Published in 2009, 320 pages. Read the book. Reserve a copy at the Library. Visit your local bookstore.