Together We Read

Reading is such a solitary pursuit, and yet a good book is something we all want to share. What would happen if everyone in Western North Carolina read the same book? That’s the question that started Together We Read, a community reading program in the 21 counties in the mountain region. Local author, historian, and Asheville Citizen-Times book reviewer Rob Neufeld heads the group, which aims to “encourage a love of reading through the shared experience of well chosen books.” 

Each year since 2002, the group has invited the community to cast a vote to choose the annual “Homegrown Read.” The only requirement is that the book somehow connects to local people, culture, heritage, or experience of the mountain region. Librarians and booksellers help create a short list of books, and promote the selected book with speakers, discussions, author appearances, performances, and multi-media projects. Young people are drawn in with a children’s supplement that echoes subject matter in the selected book, and through related activities at schools or libraries.

Fiction, nonfiction, contemporary or historical, the book selections cover a range of literary expression and prove how diverse mountain literature really is. Together We Read’s first pick was Wilma Dykeman’s The French Broad, a natural history of the river and the people who surround it. Fred Chappell’s comic novel Brighten the Corner Where You Are, was next, followed by the classic regional study Our Southern Highlanders by Horace Kephart, John Ehle’s The Road, Ron Rash’s Saints at the River, and Lee Smith’s Civil War era novel On Agate Hill. This year’s choice, Boone — the first biography selection—has a double connection to the region: its author Robert Morgan is a Hendersonville native, and its subject, the legendary Daniel Boone, lived in North Carolina and hunted in these mountains.

The group also participates in The Big Read, a National Endowment of the Arts program, which promotes reading the classics together. My Antonia by Willa Cather was the 2008 selection. In addition to sponsoring many book discussions and programs around the book, Together We Read created a collection of oral histories from present-day immigrants to the mountains and mounted an exhibition at a local resource center that serves new Americans. 

Other cities in the Smokies region which host “one city, one book” programs include Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Lynchburg, Va.

To find out more about upcoming programs and to cast your vote for the 2009 Big Read, go to togetherweread.org or visit The Read On WNC at thereadonwnc.ning.com.

— By Joanne O’Sullivan