One Book, One Community

The mission of “One Book, One Community” is to promote literacy and a love for reading, celebrate diversity, and foster a community of readers by providing opportunities to explore and discuss a common text.

Book

A clear frontrunner to be the year's most extraordinary novel, Never Let Me Go is the third book in what could be called Kazuo Ishiguro's Bewilderment Trilogy. Like its predecessors, The Unconsoled (1995) and When We Were Orphans (2000), it is riddled with mystery. As Kathy, a 31-year-old carer living in England in the late 1990s, looks back at her school days at Hailsham, a picturesque establishment nestling amid quiet countryside, an unsettling strangeness emanates from her reminiscences. What initially seems a near-idyll of benign teachers, lively students, stimulating classes, sporting triumphs on the playing fields, midnight gossips in the dorm and friendly strolls around the pond with its bulrushes and wildfowl assumes an increasingly out-of-true aspect. Innocuous words — "carer", "students", "donations", "complete" — take on deepeningly sinister overtones. Gradually, through Kathy's rosy-tinted retrospect, the contours of a horrific situation loom.

Reviews at Amazon

Author

Kazuo Ishiguro is the author of six novels, and he was awarded the Booker prize in 1989 for his third, The Remains of the Day. It is not surprising that Ishiguro was given this literary accolade so early on in his writing career, as each of these novels is powerfully crafted in the inimitable, meticulously observed manner that has brought much critical and popular acclaim to their author. His more recent novels have been characterized by a formal adventurousness and willingness to experiment that have brought him further acclaim as a stylist and explorer of the possibilities of the novel.
Ishiguro's novels are characterized by the way that the calm expository style and seemingly unimportant concerns of the narrators disguise a world fraught by regrets, unresolved emotional conflicts, and a deep yearning to recapture (and make sense of) the past. They commonly deal with issues of memory, self-deception, and codes of etiquette, leading his characters to a reevaluation or realization about the relative success or failure of their lives. NPR Interview

Schedule

Date	Event
Sept. 9, 11:30-1:30pm	UNCW/Synergy Festival Kick off - Gain insight into Never Let Me Go as we bring the novel to life with student performances, food, creative arts activities and related readings from the novel. Enjoy performances, free food, giveaways and prizes. Commons Amphitheatre (Rainsite: Burney Center)
Sept. 11 10:30 am	Book Discussion - Main Library , 201 Chestnut Street , Wilmington, NC 28401
Sept. 16 6:30 pm	Book Discussion - NE Regional Library, 1241 Military Cutoff, Wilmington, NC 28405
Sept. 23 7-9 pm	UNCW/Synergy Film Series - see www.uncw.edu/commonreading/events for description, Lumina Theatre, UNCW campus
Sept. 25 2pm	Book Discussion - Myrtle Grove Public Library, 5155 South College Road, Wilmington NC 28412
October 1 6:30-8 pm	UNCW/Synergy Lecture Series: "Consequences of the Genetic Revolution" UNCW faculty from the College of Arts and Sciences will explore the social and ethical implications of genetic engineering from a variety of perspectives and respond to questions. Dobo Hall Room 134
October 6 3pm Cape Fear Community College 6 pm Main Library	Medical Readers Theatre: Short Story: "Follow Your Heart" by Richard Selzer Readers’ theater is like listening to a drama on the radio. Performers read their character’s lines while sitting before the audience. The reading lasts about 25 minutes and is followed by a discussion with the cast about the issues raised in the story. Todd L. Savitt, a professor at the Brody School of Medicine, who organized and has directed the Medical Readers’ Theater program at the medical school since 1988, will introduce the program and lead the post-performance discussion. The program will last about an hour.In “Follow Your Heart” the wife of a man whose organs have been donated for transplantation seeks solace from her grief in an unusual and perhaps ethically questionable way. The story puts a human face on organ transplantation by looking at the issue from the perspectives of the donor's family, the organ recipient, and the transplant physician.Medical readers theater allows the public an opportunity to discuss issues of common concern regarding medicine in an open forum with other citizens. Afternoon performance @ Cape Fear Community College, Evening performance @ Main Library, 201 Chestnut Street
October 8 7-9 pm	UNCW/Synergy Film Series - see www.uncw.edu/commonreading/events for description, Lumina Theatre, UNCW campus
October 20 7-8:30 pm	UNCW/Synergy Lecture Series: "Frankenstein: A Cultural History" by Susan Taylor Hitchcock - Froma gothic romance to a loaded reference in the public debate over genetic engineering, author Susan Taylor Hiitchcock chronicles the evolution of a cultural icon, exploring what the modern myth of frankenstein and his monster tell us about our human aspirations - and our reservations - sponsored by Randall Library and One Book one Community. Randall Library Auditorium
October 13- November 7	Madame's Gallery: Student Art Exhibition - Ann Flack Boseman Gallery , Warwick Student Center Conforming to identical paint by number paintings, UNCW students are invited to make their own interpretatios through color to explore a world of creativity and individuality. Sponsored by UNCW Presents