The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to revitalize the role of literature reading in American popular culture. The Big Read brings community resources together to facilitate and encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment.
Talking Book Services is joining forces with partners here in South Carolina in making available A lesson before dying by Ernest Gaines, the NEA’s Big Read title. The book is available to our patrons in audio format RC 36694. To request this title call out toll free number 1-800-922-7818.
The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to revitalize the role of literature reading in American popular culture. The Big Read brings community resources together to facilitate and encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment.
Talking Book Services is joining forces with partners here in South Carolina in making available “A lesson before dying” by Ernest Gaines, the NEA’s Big Read title. The book is available to our patrons in audio format RC 36694. To request this title call out toll free number 1-800-922-7818.
RC 36694
A lesson before dying
by Ernest Gaines
Bayonne, Louisiana, 1948. A young, naive black man has been sentenced to death for the murder of a white man--a murder that he did not commit. His attorney argues that he is too stupid to plan a crime. "Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair..." Galled by this defense, Jefferson's godmother, Miss Emma, turns to Grant, the plantation schoolteacher, to teach Jefferson to die like a man. This book contains some strong language and some descriptions of sex.
As part of the Big Read several community resources such as the South Carolina State Library, the Richland County Public Library and Benedict College will be holding special events.
The South Carolina State Library will host the Speaker @ The Center on February 27, 2008 from noon to 1:00 p.m., Dr. Stephanie Mitchem will discuss “Heroism and Community in A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines” as part of the Benedict College Big Read Program. The Speaker @ the Center is an initiative by the SC Center for the Book which is a cooperative project of the SC State Library, the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science, and The Humanities Council SC.
Professor Stephanie Mitchem, Ph. D., Associated Professor at the University of South Carolina, also visited Talking Book Services and interviewed with Pamela Davenport, Director TBS. During this interview they discussed why the book suited our community, to which Dr. Mitchem responded, that the way in which Gaines presents intricate and complex issues in “everyday language” makes this title pertinent to this day and time. She adds that the texture, the setting is a familiar one, “A lesson before dying” is based in Louisiana. Other issues discussed by Dr. Mitchem and Mrs. Davenport included the composition of the African American community then and now; the acceptance of Gaines’ work by the mainstream literary cannon, and the challenges Gaines' work present towards the literary cannon. Pamela Davenport closed the interview by asking Dr. Mitchem "Why should we read this book?"; to which, Dr. Mitchem replied: “Because it is an American story”.
Listen to the interview here.
To view an excerpt of the interview please, click here.
