THORN: One Book work in progress

Denver's program must refocus to attract readers

By Patti Thorn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Maybe you remember my recent column, headlined "One Book final event one snoozer."

In it, I recapped what has to rank as one of the more dreadful evenings of recent memory: Sitting in a dark, cold high school auditorium, listening to author Nick Arvin read from his World War II novel to the unfortunate accompaniment of an electric guitar approximating the sound of bombs going off.

It was part of Denver's 2007 community reading program, One Book, One Denver. And I have to admit, I was embarrassed for the city. The event was ill-conceived, poorly executed and uninspiring.

Far worse was the underlying sense, amid the discordant guitar riffs and drowned-out prose, that One Book, One Denver itself was bombing. Only 100 others joined me that night, a paltry showing if you consider the main author event has attracted as many as 800 in past years.

Indeed, the community reading series designed to encourage all Denverites to read and discuss the same book hit a participation low in 2007. Record-keeping has been irregular at best, but city staffers estimate that book sales and library circulation totalled around 16,000 in the program's first year in 2004. This time, they plummeted to less than 5,000.

Any further drop and One Book, One Denver is in danger of earning the label one local writer gave it in jest: One Book, One Reader.

What's happening?

The city is re-evaluating the program. Its new directives will be released this month, according to Pauline Herrera, communications and marketing director of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs.

To get some perspective, I went back to where it all started. I phoned Chris Hagashi, program manager for the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library.

Higashi launched the one-book notion with librarian Nancy Pearl in 1998 - an idea that caught on like wildfire across the country. Nearly 10 years later, Seattle's program is thriving. While it attracts a relatively modest 8,000 to 10,000 participants each year, it has managed to achieve a level of buzz and excitement that Denver's program hasn't.

"The momentum has just grown one year to the next," says Higashi. "People from book clubs are always asking what's next."

And no wonder. With her reading series, "the most amazing discussions take place every year . . . (Often) people are moved to tears. It's really astonishing."

But like a chemistry experiment, one-book programs require just the right ingredients. As Higashi spoke about what makes her program successful, the flaws in Denver's series seemed glaringly evident, including a book-selection process fraught with political agendas and program management plagued by turnover.

Some of the problems are easily fixed. Others will take more doing. But I think it's worth a look.

Hey, I was as skeptical as anyone when the program was announced. No one knows better than I do that finding one book to please everyone is like looking for one pair of shoes to fit a million feet: It simply can't be done.

But I was won over with the first few One Book celebrations. Sitting in a room with people from all parts of the city, all buzzing with anticipation and bursting with questions for an author they have recently discovered may not exactly change the world - but it sure does change your feelings about where that world is headed.

Let's just say it beats an evening watching Celebrity Apprentice.

While the program has suffered the past few years, Mayor John Hickenlooper's original instincts still hold: It's a great way to build community, not to mention convey where the city's priorities lie.

In a city that has seen other civic reading projects fail (remember the ill-fated Rocky Mountain Book Festival?), letting One Book fizzle would send a sour message to the book-loving community - more sour, in fact, than the notes the guitarist hit that sorry night of Arvin's reading.

One Book deserves more than one reader. Here's hoping the mayor's office can shore it up before it sinks.

Where is One Book, One Denver going wrong?

Books editor Patti Thorn counts the ways. Here's a look at how our program differs from Seattle's.

Goal, audience

SEATTLE

* The goal is to offer an enriching community experience for book lovers. "Literacy has nothing to do with it," says Chris Higashi, program manager for the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library. "It's a humanities program, basically." As such, it's aimed at adults.

DENVER

* Designed "to promote a culture of reading," the program targets high-schoolers, adults, serious readers, casual readers - even nonreaders. "Getting people to read who don't normally read, that's still a goal," says Pauline Herrera, communications and marketing director of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs.

BOTTOM LINE

* With a target as broad as Denver's, finding the right book is like throwing darts in the dark. Narrow the audience, widen the chances for success.

Book selection process

SEATTLE

* Higashi, 56, gets input from many sources, but the program reflects her highly attuned literary sensibilities. "I read all the time," she says, noting that she often devours five books a week.

Higashi's process is organic. Consider how Seattle Reads ended up this year with The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, by Dinaw Mengestu:

Last spring, Mengestu appeared for a signing at a Seattle bookstore. Afterward, Higashi got a call from organizers bowled over by his appearance: "They said he was absolutely charming, just wonderful with the crowd . . . They sent me a galley (of the book) and, oh wow."

Higashi loved the book. She talked to the fiction department manager at the library, who also loved it. Meanwhile, another library staffer, impressed by two authors she heard on National Public Radio, sent Higashi the link to the interviews - one of which happened to feature Mengestu. Then, yet another librarian read a rave review of a book, bought it and loved it. Yes, it was Mengestu's.

"I said, 'OK, the universe is telling me something.' If we had a formal process where people meet, then vote, that was not going to happen."

DENVER

* A committee meets and comes to a consensus. The group (8 to 10 librarians, Tattered Cover staffers, academics and mayor's office staffers) then presents a short list to the mayor, who makes the final choice. Not every book is read by every committee member. I'm told members are required to read only "a portion" of each.

BOTTOM LINE

* You know what they say: A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

Requirements for book

SEATTLE

* "The most important thing is an excellent book for discussion," says Higashi, "something well-written, with multidimensional characters who have to make decisions that sometimes make sense, sometimes don't make sense."

The book must be available in paperback, and its author also must be living, congenial and willing to appear at events.

Higashi avoids choosing books based on political correctness. "You don't want the mayor and elected officials telling you what you need to read. You don't need someone saying, 'We need to talk about race; we need to talk about poverty.' I think that's why many projects fail."

As for bad language: "I don't think anyone here would ever tell me I couldn't do a book because of a certain language or scene ."

And what about choosing a local author? "I have never done a local author. I haven't thought of a book and author (from Seattle) that's the right one yet."

DENVER

* The committee also looks for a well-written book. As in Seattle, it must be available in paperback, and the author must be cordial and willing to appear at events.

But there are other imperatives as well:

The book must be appropriate for high school students (translation: no explicit sex, graphic violence, etc.).

In the past, it had to be available in Spanish translation (this rule was relaxed with the 2007 title, Articles of War).

In addition, committee members discuss whether the book might be offensive to some.

For example, when the program's third choice, John Nichols' The Milagro Beanfield War, came up, members voiced concern that Nichols' use of the phrase "Ai, Chihuahua!" might offend Hispanics. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper has stated that Kent Haruf's wonderful novel Plainsong is not an option because of a sex scene that might upset parents.

On the flip side, a self-published historical novel about the Ku Klux Klan in Denver, written by a local black author who submitted the book to the committee, was seriously considered as a way to reach a "broader community."

What's more, the local writing community has been extremely insistent that a hometown author's book be chosen. In '07, the committee obliged.

BOTTOM LINE

* When told about the mayor's shunning of Plainsong, Higashi reacted as if she'd been punched. "Oh for God's sake," she said. "Oh gee. That's so discouraging." My feelings exactly - on all of the above.

The final bottom line

Come on, guys: It's only one book. It can't be all things to all people. Organizers need to sharpen their goals and focus their audience in order to find the right books.

Most important, organizers desperately need to find a way to buffer book selections from the Political Correctness Police. If that means untethering high-schoolers from the program, so be it.

Readers who sense they're being fed books that are good for them - books chosen to meet someone else's agenda, rather than because they are awesome reads, plain and simple - will turn off to the program faster than kids snubbing at a plate of spinach.

Here's a rule you can live by: Any book that promotes lively discussion is bound to be controversial. Let's face it, often that's half the fun.

Funding

SEATTLE

* Higashi is a city employee, but her salary is paid through grants and other private funds, as is the bulk of Seattle Reads. This has helped the program withstand outside political pressures.

DENVER

* The program is run by the DOCA and funded with taxpayer money and sponsorships, thus leaving it vulnerable to political agendas. As for its budget, while funds from DOCA have averaged around $33,000, sponsorships have dropped dramatically the past two years. It's unclear whether this is because of lax recruiting, the economy or a decline in interest in the program.

BOTTOM LINE

* Even in the worst year, Denver's funding has been comparable to Seattle's, if not far better. Money doesn't seem to be the root of the problem.

Programming

SEATTLE

* Higashi strives to create programs that are intensely specific for each title. For the recent graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, "We did programs on Islam, on the Iranian revolution, on graphic novels, so people would have a basis and context for thinking about the work they're discussing."

Similarly, for Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor was Divine, a book about a Japanese-American family's internment during World War II, Higashi networked with Japanese-American groups to get the word out about the book. As a result, that community attended events, adding to the program's impact.

"The first night, the moderator said, 'I notice we have many Nisei here tonight.' " Former internees were asked to stand. "Thirty people from all around the room stood up. You could hear an audible sigh, and then everybody started to cry. There was an amazing coming together and honoring and having these stories told, probably for the first time, in their own community."

As a wrap-up, the author always visits Seattle for three or four days of appearances.

DENVER

* Has also tailored events to each book, though not as intensively. For example, with Arvin's World War II book, a screening of Ken Burns' recent documentary The War was held, accompanied by a panel discussion with veterans. Nice touch.

BOTTOM LINE

* While there have been highlights, programming has been uneven and often relies heavily on public readings, rather than events that enrich readers' understanding of the books' themes. And really: must the main events always be held in dreary, dank high school auditoriums?

Timing

SEATTLE

* Initially held late fall/early winter, shifted to spring because booksellers "felt they could give it more energy, more display space if we didn't do it at the busiest time of the year," Higashi says. Now, the book is generally announced in March; final events take place in May.

DENVER

* Initially held in spring, shifted to fall.

BOTTOM LINE

* Compete with football, the start of the school year and the looming holidays? Time for Plan B.

Leadership

SEATTLE

* Higashi has been with the program since its inception in 1998.

DENVER

* The program has had four project managers in four years.

BOTTOM LINE

* No big surprise: Consistency counts.

• February 5, 2008

  2:15 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  crebj writes:

  Thanks for shedding light on how this well-intended program seems doomed to fail. Gotta say, much as I liked Articles of War, it's hard to discuss the book itself. Boldfaced Lies would have been a better choice.

• February 6, 2008

  9:58 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  katharine writes:

  Thanks for your article. I enjoyed the book but thought the whole event this year was horribly mismanaged. We did discuss it at our book group but by the time I got the PR I was too busy to attend any of the other events- which for the most part didn't sound very good. I love the concept but think it was a throwaway this year. Too bad, because the book was very good.
  I agree that decisions by committee are not the best way to find the best book. People don't always agree on books- and that is precisely what make discussions stimulating. Trying to make it please all people is a recipe for failure.
  Maybe the city should turn the management over to professionals, like the Lighthouse Writers group which is winning an award this month.