The City of Pittsfield Office of Cultural Development has received a grant of $10,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to again host The Big Read, a community bookreading project, in Pittsfield. The Big Read grant gives communities across the country the opportunity to come together to read, discuss, and celebrate classic and contemporary selections from American and world literature.
Pittsfield’s second Big Read project will focus on the acclaimed Vietnam War novel, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, during the month of April 2010, the 35th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, the culmination of the Vietnam War. A finalist for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried is considered one of the best novels ever written about combat and the Vietnam War.
Pittsfield Mayor James M. Ruberto stated, “We are thrilled to once again host a Big Read community book project in the City of Pittsfield, and especially pleased to focus attention, through the acclaimed novel The Things They Carried, on the brave members of our community who served in the Vietnam War. I look forward to another successful project encouraging communitywide conversations and creative programs serving students, veterans, artists, readers, writers and more.”
The Big Read project in Pittsfield will be a collaborative effort involving many community partners, including Barrington Stage Company; Chapters Bookstore; Pittsfield’s four high schools; the Berkshire Museum; Soldier On, a non-profit organization which represents and assists homeless veterans; the City of Pittsfield’s Veterans Services Office; the Berkshire Historical Society; the Berkshire Athenaeum, the local chapters of the Vietnam Veterans of America, and others.
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