The Santa Monica Citywide Reads Advisory Committee invites community input for the 2011 book selection.
The mission of Citywide Reads is to encourage a culture of reading and to promote book-centered dialogue in Santa Monica.
Book selection criteria include the following: fiction, amenable to good group discussion, broad appeal, challenging but not exclusive, and available in a variety of formats, such as paperback and audiobook.
Past Citywide Reads selections include “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress,” by Dai Sijie; “The Berlin Stories,” by Christopher Isherwood; “The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini; “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” by Jonathan Safran Foer; “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” by Audrey Niffenegger; “The Highest Tide,” by Jim Lynch; “The Shadow Catcher,” by Marianne Wiggins; and 2010’s selection “Little Bee,” by Chris Cleave.
To make a suggestion for Citywide Reads 2011, go to the online survey at www.smpl.org/cwr, visit any Santa Monica Public Library, call (310) 458-8600, or e-mail citywidereads@smgov.net. Suggestions will be accepted through May 30, 2010. The Citywide Reads title will be chosen and announced in the fall, and the program will take place in spring 2011.