Letter from the chair of the committee

The act of reading is one of the essential pursuits of the fully educated human being. When we engage in reading, research, and reflection, we are forever enriched, becoming more powerful, perceptive people.

Reading is one of the deeply private things we do. As we sit alone and meditate and/or travel through the pages before us, we refine our own judgments, our identities, our hidden vocabularies, powers, and sensibilities. Navigating the complex web of emotions and thoughts woven between reader and text can be one o of the great illuminating and rewarding experiences of our lives.

Beyond the private sense of nourishment and pleasure that an individual may experience, reading can also be a collective or a communal endeavor. When we read, discuss, and reflect together, we get to know each other and become more sensitive to the details, not only in the work at hand, but also in the way that it is perceived by others equipped with a differently focused lens.

In the largest possible sense, reading can also be thought of as a political act. What we choose to read and interpret defines our values and our commitments to the larger world. Throughout history, important texts and authors --from the Bible to the Qur'an; from DuBois to De Beauvoir, from Marx to Martin Luther King-- have galvanized ordinary people and social movements to change themselves and to change the world.

It is with these basic ideas about the value of reading that we created the COmmunity Book Connection. We believe that by engaging in a common reading throughout the year at CCBC, and exploring its many facets and themes together, we will become a more vibrant educational community.

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien is a good place to start this project. With its strong language and compelling story, it can appeal to our personal aesthetic sensibilities. With its potent symbolic weight and paradoxical message it will lend itself to many discussions and debates. And in view of the fact that our nation is again embroiled in the horrors of a controversial overseas war, this work continues to resonate and carry weight today.

In chapter three of The Things They Carried, O'Brien says that "stories are for joining the past to the future." I might add that stories can help to guide us, in some way, toward better futures.

Kim Jensen
August 13, 2006

Funding subcommittee

Jan Allen
Penny Revelle
Steve Tanner

Events Planning subcommittee:

Jan Allen
Rashida Govan
Vicki Hong Smith
Kim Jensen
Julie Lewis
Christian Richards
Anne Roberts
Debra Sambuco
Cheryl Scott
Ann Kaiser Stearns

Publicity subcommittee

Peter Adams
Annmarie Chiarini
Erica Cirillo
Barbara Crawford
Kim Jensen
Carr Kizzier
Armada Ligabue
Gayla Sanders

Educational subcommittee:

Nancy Bogage
Melba Green
Fred Hickok
Natalie Kimbrough
Betty Lipford
Joshua Reisig
Cynthia Roberts
Tom Robertson
Carmen Yannuzzi