The Big Read - Wichita

By popular demand, The Big Read returned in fall 2011 to south-central Kansas with book discussions and special events and exhibits in celebration of Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." Community partners from across the region made this effort possible. Titles for young readers wishing to participate were also available.

Thousands of participants read “The Things They Carried,” a fascinating novel of interconnected short stories. Though fictional, they are as believable as memoir and drawn from the author’s own experiences fighting in Vietnam.  The title story begins with a literal list of the physical items carried by soldiers in combat – guns, ammunition, photographs -- but then deftly turns to examining their memories and thoughts. Published in 1990, it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award.

O’Brien’s book is not a mere “war story,” but a triumph and exploration of the power of storytelling. It reaffirms the importance of documenting and sharing stories. As the narrator shares in “The Things They Carried,” “Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there's nothing to remember except the story.”

Remembering the story, and sharing the same one as one community -- that’s the real power of The Big Read.

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest designed to revitalize the role of literature in American culture and bring the transformative power of literature into the lives of citizens. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment.

"I carried Tim O'Brien's 'The Things They Carried' to Afghanistan. You know, a book like this could allow me to have a running conversation with someone who'd . . . walked in my boots before, and to know that I wasn't alone." -- Author Craig Mullaney, a Rhodes Scholar and West Point graduate