The Big Read is a nationwide program created by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. It is designed to revitalize the role of literary reading in American culture. The Big Read invites neighbors to read a single book of American literature in their communities, then come together for book discussion groups, panels, lectures, film screenings and other activities related to the book. Read More ...

Plans for the first Big Read Roanoke Valley were launched in June, 2009, by the board of the Friends of the Roanoke County Public Library. Two members of the Friends’ board serve as coordinators for the project, and the Friends underwrite a large portion of the expenses. Other public libraries as well as college libraries in Salem, Botetourt County and Roanoke, two newspapers and a business magazine also help fund the initiative.

Set on a plantation outside Bayonne, Louisiana during the late 1940s, Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying is the eloquent account of one man’s struggle to come to terms with his own mortality and another man’s attempt to guide him in this process. The novel follows the relationship of Jefferson, a young black man wrongfully sentenced to die, and Grant, the plantation’s college-educated teacher who is reluctant to become involved despite the urging of his aunt and the African American community. Read More ...

Ernest J. Gaines, born January 15, 1933, is an acclaimed American author whose novels and short stories have been awarded numerous honors and have been taught in countless classrooms. His best-known fiction includes his 1993 novel, A Lesson Before Dying, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and A Gathering of Old Men.

A Lesson Before Dying won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A novel that references Read More ...