The Scroll of Books to Save

Throughout our year of The Big Read, we asked people at each event to add a book title or author to the ever-lengthening scroll of "books to save" - that is, books that we would want to save from a fire as depicted in Fahrenheit 451.  The list, after our final event, now numbers more than 230 titles.  Many of these were written on the scroll by more than one person, and that duplication is not noted here.  It is a remarkably eclectic collection of books, reflecting the diversity of people who participated in the Big Read events during the past seven months!  Thanks to all who contributed.  If you want to add a title, feel free to comment.  Deciphering some hand-writing was difficult, so if your favorite book is not noted here, my apologies.  I tried to verify each title with the correct author using WorldCat or other sources, and could not do so for every title recorded on the scroll.

	Author	Title
	1984	George Orwell
	"anything by"	Mark Twain
	"anything by"	Patricia Highsmith
	"anything by"	Wilhem Reich
	"anything by"	Willa Cather
	Absalom, Absalom	William Faulkner
	Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Mark Twain
	Ahab's Wife	Sena Jeter Naslund
The	Alchemist	Paulo Coelho
The	Alexandria Quartet	Lawrence Durrell
	All the King's Men	Robert Penn Warren
	Always Outmanned, Always Outgunned	Walter Mosley
	American Gods	Neil Gaiman
The	American Pageant	David M. Kennedy
	And Tango Makes Three	Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
	And the Band Played On	Randy Shilts
	Angle of Repose	Wallace Stenger and Jackson J. Benson
	Angry Candy	Harlan Ellison
	Animal Dreams	Barbara Kingsolver
	Animal, Vegetable, Mineral	Barbara Kingsolver
	Anna Karenina	Leo Tolstoy
The	Ants	E. O. Wilson
	As I Lay Dying	William Faulkner
	As You Like It	William Shakespeare
	Bastard Out of Carolina	Dorothy Allison
	Beloved	Toni Morrison
	Between Friends	Debbie Macomber
The	Bhagavad Gita	Sri Krishna
	Black Beauty	Anna Sewell
	Black Like Me: Autobiography of Malcom X	Malcom X
	Blood Meridian or the evening redness in the West	Cormac McCarthy
	Blood Oranges	John Hawkes
The	Blue Sword	Robin McKinley
	Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy	Eric Metaxas
	Brain Sex: the real different between men and women	Anne Moir
	Brave New World	Aldous Huxley
	Brothers Karamazov	Fyodor Dostoevsky
	Canterbury Tales	Geoffrey Chaucer
A	Canticle for Liebowitz	Walter M. Miller
	Captain Underpants	Dav Pilkey
	Carnival of Fury	William Ivy Flair
The	Catcher in the Rye	J. D. Salinger
	Ceremony	Leslie Marmon Silko
	Cold Comfort Farm	Stella Gibbons
The	Color of Water	James McBride
	Color Purple	Alice Walker
The	Columbia Encyclopedia	Clarke F. Ansley, editor in chief
The	Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson	Emily Dickinson
	Confederacy of Dunces	Kennedy O'Toole
The	Constitution of the United States of America	James Madison, et al.
	Count of Monte Cristo	Alexandre Dumas père
	Courage and Consequence	Karl Rove
	Crossings: a history of Vermont Bridges	Robert McCullough
	Cry the Beloved Country	Alan Patak
	David Copperfield	Charles Dickens
The	Declaration of Independence	Thomas Jefferson, et al.
	Desert Solitaire	Edward Abbey
	Diary of Anne Frank	Anne Frank
The	Drifters	James Mitchener
	Dune	Frank Herbert
	Eazy Rollins series	Walter Mosley
The	Elegance of the Hedgehog	Muriel Barbery
The	End of Time	Isaac Asimov
	Ender's Game	Orson Scott Card
	Everything is Illuminated	Jonathan Safran Foer
A	Farewell to Arms	Ernest Hemingway
	Faust	Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The	Federalist or The Federalist Papers	Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
	Fifth Sacred Thing	Starhawk
The	Fledgling	Octavia Butler
	Flowers for Algernon (Charly)	Daniel Keyes
The	Gift	Hafiz
	Giraffe	J.M. Ledgard
The	Giver	Lois Lowry
The	Giving Tree	Shel Silverstein
	God Bless You Mr. Rosewater	Kurt Vonnegaut
	God of Small Things	Arundhati Roy
The	Golden Compass	Philip Pullman
	Gone With the Wind	Margaret Mitchell
The	Good Earth	Pearl S. Buck
	Good Omens	Neil Gaiman
	Goodnight Moon	Margaret Wise Brown
	Goosebumps: Say Cheese and Die	R. L. Stine
The	Gospel According to Biff	Christopher Moore
The	Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck
The	Great Gatsby	F. Scott Fitzgerald
	Habibi	Naomi Shihab Nye
	Hamlet	William Shakespeare
	Harold and the Purple Crayon	Crockett Johnson
	Harry Potter series	J. K. Rowling
The	Help	Stockette
The	History of Love	Allison Krause
The	Hobbit, or, There and Back Again	J. R. R. Tolkien
	Holes	Lewis Sacher
The	Holy Bible
The	Holy Qur'an
	Hope Dies Last: Autobiography	Alexander Dubcek
	How Did We Find Out About Electricity?	Isaac Asimov
	How Many Licks, or How to Estimate Damn Near Anything	DeAaron Santos
	How to Read the Air	Dinaw Mengestu
	Hunger Games	Suzanne Collins
	I and Thou	Martin Buber
	I, Robot	Isaac Asimov
	If On a Winter's Night a Traveler…	Italo Calvino
	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl	Harriet Jacobs
	Infinite Jest	David Foster Wallace
The	Joy of Cooking	Irma von Starkloff Rombauer
	Katherine	Anya Seton
	Klondike Fever	Pierre Berton
	L'Etranger	Albert Camus
The	Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles	Julie Andrews
	Leaves of Grass	Walt Whitman
	Let the Circle be Unbroken	Mildred Taylor
	Letters to a Young Poet	Rainer Maria Rilke
The	Life of Pi	Yann Martel
	Like Water for Chocolate	Laura Esquivel
The	Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	C. S. Lewis
	Little Birds Erotica	Anais Nin
	Little House in the Big Woods	Laura Ingalls Wilder
	Little Miss Sunshine	Roger Hargreaves
	Lolita	Vladimer Nabkob
	Lord Jim	Joseph Conrad
	Lord of the Flies	William Golding
The	Lord of the Rings	J. R. R. Tokien
	Love	Leo Buscalgia
	Love You Forever	Robert Munsch and Sheila McGraw
	Marley and Me	John Grogan
	Martian Timeslip	Philip K. Dick
The	Marx-Engels Reader	Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels; ed. by Robert C. Tucker
	Me Talk Pretty One Day	David Sedaris
	Middlemarch	T. S. Eliot
	Midwives	Chris Bojalimna
	Moby Dick	Herman Melville
	Moonspinners	Mary Stewart
	Mrs. Dalloway	Virginia Woolf
	My Side of the Mountain	Jean Craighead George
	Naked	David Sedaris
The	Namesake	Jhumpa Lahiri
	Neverending Story	Michael Ende
	Night	Elie Wiesel
	Night Watch	Terry Pratchett
The	Notebook	José Saramago
The	Once and Future King	T. H. White
	One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich	Alexander Solzhenitsyn
	One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish	Dr. Seuss
	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	Ken Kesey
	One Hundred Years of Solitude	Gabriel García Márquez
	Organic Chemistry, 6th ed.	Francis A. Carey
The	Other Wind	U.K. LeGuin
	Our Town	Thornton Wilder
	Out of Africa	Isak Dinesen
The	Outsiders	S. E. Hinton
	Parable of the Sower	Octavia Butler
	Perdido Street Station	China Mieville
The	Perks of Being a Wallflower	Stephen Chbosky
	Persuasion	Jane Austen
Le	Petite Prince	Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The	Phantom Tollbooth	Norton Juster
	Phantoms in the Brain	V.S. Ramachandran
The	Pigman	Paul Zindel
	Pilgrim's Progress	Mark Twain
The	Pillars of the Earth	Ken Follett
	[Poetry]	Edgar Alan Poe
The	Poisonwood Bible	Barbara Kingsolver
A	Prayer for Owen Meany	John Irving
	Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austin
The	Prophet	Kahlil Gibran
	Queen Zixi of Ix; or, the Story of the Magic Cloak	Frank  L. Baum
	Quiet Flows the Dawn	Sholokov
	Redwall	Brian Jacques
The	Return of the Native	Thomas Hardy
The	Road Less Traveled	M. Scott Peck
	Robin Hood	[author not given]
	Room	[author not given]
	Running with Scissors	Augusten Burroughts
The	Scarlet Letter	Nathaniel Hawthorne
The	Secret Life of Bees	Sue Monk Kidd
	Seeds: Time Capsules of Life	Kesseler and Stuppy
A	Separate Peace	John Knowles
	Short stories	Anton Chekhov
	Single Variable Calculus, 6th ed.	James Stewart
	Sirens of Titan	Kurt Vonnegut
	Slaughter House Five	Kurt Vonnegaut
The	Sledding Hill	Chris Crutcher
	Snakes: the evolution of myster in nature	Harry Greene
The	Soft Machine	William Burroughs
	Solaris	Stanilaw Lem
A	Song of Ice and Fire	George R. R. Martin
	Song of Solomon	Tony Morrison
	Soulstepping	Elizabeth C. Fine
The	Sound and the Fury	William Faulkner
The	Sparrow	Mary Doria Russel
The	Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down	Anne Fadiman
	Stargirl	Jerry Spinelli
	Stones Into Schools	Greg Mortenson
	Stranger in a Strange Land	Robert A. Heinlein
	Sufi poetry	Rumi (Jalal ad-Dīn Muhammad Rumi)
	Summerhill	A. S. Neill
	Tales from Central Russia, Book 1	James Riordan
	Tangerine	Edward Bloor
	Team of Rivals	Doris Kearns Goodwin
	Their Eyes Were Watcing God	Zora Neal Hurston
	There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom	Louis Sachar
The	Things They Carried	Tim O'Brien
	Three Cups of Tea	Greg Mortenson
	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee
	Toby Chipmunk	Margaret J. McElroy and Jessica O. Younge
	Tortilla Flat	John Steinbeck
A	Tree Grows in Brooklyn	Betty Smith
	Twenty Love Poems and One Song of Despair	Pablo Neruda
The	Twits	Roald Dahl
	Two Logs Crossing; John Haskell's Story	Walter Dumaux Edmonds
The	Velveteen Rabbit	Margarey Williams
	Venus In Furs	Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch
	Walden	Henry David Thoreau
	War and Peace	Leo Tolstoy
	Water for Elephants	Sara Gruen
	Watership Down	Richard Adams
The	Way of the Scout	Tom Brown, Jr.
	What We Talk About When We Talk About Love	Raymond Carver
	Where I'm Calling From	Ray Cower
	Where's Waldo?	Martin Handford
	Whiteman	Tony D'Souza
	Who Are You People?	Shari Candron
The	Wind-Witch	Susan Dexter
	Winnie the Pooh stories	A.A. Milne
The	Witch of Blackbird Pond	Elizabeth George Speare
The	Wizard of Oz	Frank L. Baum
The	Woman Warrior	Maxine Kingston
The	World According to Garp	John Irving
	World Without End	Ken Follett
The	Writing Life	Annie Dillard
	Zeitoun	Dave Eggers

Secrets of the State and National Security Issues: What Your Government Isn't Telling You

April 7, 2011
First Church, UCC Fellowship Hall
Our last session of the Big Read, organized by the North Central Chapter of American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and co-sponsored by Oberlin Big Read, featured Frank Kunstel, activist and director of the speakers bureau for the ACLU of Ohio. He spoke about government suppression of information and the public's right to know, focusing on the government's use of the category "classified" information, the "states secrets privilege" invoked by the Bush and Obama administrations, and the revelation of information via sources such as wikileaks.

Kunstel drew parallels between the dystopian future portrayed in Fahrenheit 451 with the current level of secrecy imposed by government agencies over a very broad range of information.  Among several references to further reading, Kunstel recommended the FAS Project on Government Secrecy (Federation of American Scientists).

Highlighted news stories on the FAS site includes this quote from the Washington Post:  Senate panel proposes that leakers of classified information lose pensions by Walter Pincus, Washington Post, April 6. "A Senate panel has proposed legislation that could strip government pensions from active and retired members of the intelligence community who knowingly avoid pre-publication review procedures when authoring works or delivering speeches."

Thank you to the North Central Chapter of ACLU Ohio for bringing Frank Kunstel to Oberlin.

Chris Crutcher visiting March 16th

Chris Crutcher, celebrated author of young adult novels, is visiting Oberlin on Wednesday, March 16.  Crutcher is the keynote speaker for Oberlin's Big Read.  During the day, he will be speaking to high school and middle school students in Oberlin.  Each of the high school grades read one of his books over the summer and now have a chance to meet the author and ask questions.  In the afternoon he will meet with a group of student writers on Oberlin's campus.

He will be speaking to the public at Oberlin Public Library at 7pm on 3/16, and his talk will focus on themes in Fahrenheit 451 around censorship and control of information.  Several of his books have been banned or challenged and he will speak about his experiences.   Please join us for the keynote talk! Cookies and juice will be served.  The talk will be followed by a book signing and chance to meet the author.

Finished reading? Pass it along!

We are very pleased that nearly every free copy of Fahrenheit 451 (200 copies total) has been given away to someone in the community.  We are even more pleased that we still have folks who would like to read the book!  If you have finished with your copy, consider bringing it back to the Oberlin Public Library or Oberlin College Library, so we may pass it along to another reader.  Thank you!

Oberlin College students and staff book discussion

Last week a group of Oberlin students got together to talk about Fahrenheit 451 over lunch. Discussion topics ranged from the book's Cold War context to the way some of the future technology Bradbury predicted in the 1950s has actually come into being. 

Many other discussion groups have been forming all over Oberlin.   There have been several public groups held at the Oberlin Public Library and a number of book clubs that have chosen to read and discuss the book.

OPL has book group kits that you can check out with copies of the book and reading guides, so if you'd like to host your own discussion group, pick up a kit and let us know how it goes.

Wag the Dog! Last film in our film series

Join us for the last showing in our F451 film series!

Wag the Dog

Wednesday, Jan 26, 2011

7 pm

Oberlin Public Library

Before elections, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to "fabricate" a war in order to cover-up a presidential sex scandal.

Director: Barry Levinson
Writers: Larry Beinhart, Hilary Henkin
Staring: Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Anne Heche

Good Night and Good Luck

Prior to the January 12 film showing at Oberlin Public Library, Alison Ricker read from the introduction to Readings on Fahrenheit 451, to provide the historical context of McCarthyism and Ray Bradbury's response to that era through his writing. Good Night and Good Luck, our second film in the F451 Film Series, explores the persecution by Senator McCarthy of suspected communists and communists sympathizers. The similar themes in the stories of the celebrated 1950s journalist Edward R. Murrow and Bradbury's futurist fiction gave the audience much to ponder.

Food for Thought: F451 reading groups in Oberlin restaurants

We have partnered with selected restaurants in town to sponsor Food for Thought, a program designed with small book discussion groups in mind.  Any group of three of more can be a book discussion group, and participating restaurants will offer an incentive to groups who read and discuss Fahrenheit 451 over a meal in the restaurant.  Some establishments are offering a ten-percent discount on the food portion of each meal; others are offering a free or discounted beverage or dessert when purchased with a meal.  The program extends through January.   

Take advantage of this opportunity to share a meal and discuss the book with friends or family! Just get a free copy of the book from the Oberlin Public Library and start reading.  Take the book and two or more reading pals to one of the participating restaurants, show the book to your server when ordering, and ask for the Food for Thought discount or promotion. Enjoy!

Participating restaurants include:   

• Beethoven's Bagels 774-7777
• The Feve 774-1978
• Fresh Start Diner  774-2841 
• Pizza Shack 774-3700
• The Slow Train Cafe  774-7570
• Yesterdays Ice Cream Shop 775-1410

Reading Between the Lines: Oberlin College

Take a look at the NEA Big Read blog, for an interview about the Oberlin Big Read:
Reading Between the Lines: Oberlin College

Pleasantville draws an appreciative audience

Young and old alike look forward to watching the movie.

Audience members settle in with fresh, hot buttered popcorn (courtesy of Oberlin Public Library reference librarian Marleen Watling) and listen to opening remarks from Oberlin College professor of English Nick Jones (below) before viewing Pleasantville on Wednesday, Jan. 5.  The public library was a great venue for the film - thank you to OPL library director Darren McDonough for preparing the space!

Nick Jones addresses the audience prior to the film showing.

Pleasantville resonated with themes in Fahrenheit 451 on several levels, from the disturbing book burning scene to mob mentality censoring freedom of expression.  My favorite scene has to be when Reese Witherspoon's character (Mary Sue, at that moment) chooses to put on reading glasses and focus on D. H. Lawrence, rather than head out for yet another joy ride to Lovers' Lane.  Her awakening to a deeper emotional state through reading excellent literature is not unlike Montag's development by reading forbidden texts.

We hope to see such a pleasant crowd again at the next three films during our Big Read Film Fest.  See you Wednesdays at 7pm in January - come early and enjoy the popcorn!  Oberlin Public Library community room.