In 2012, nearly 7,000 Marylanders, hailing from every county in our state, took part in the Maryland’s only statewide book club, One Maryland One Book (OMOB).  Partners—from libraries to universities to community centers—hosted book discussions, events, concerts, and other programs highlighting our 2012 selection by Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo.  MHC was proud to bring Mr. Galloway to Maryland to speak with audiences across the state about his novel.

Recently MHC put a call out to the public to send to us suggestions for our 2013 pick.  Selections were accepted under the theme “a pivotal and impactful moment in time.”  There are other criteria for selections.  You can find our full criteria here or access our OMOB FAQ page for more information.

• Click here to discover One Maryland One Book selections over the last five years.

More than 140 suggestions were submitted to MHC, via the One Maryland One Book Facebook page, MHC on Twitter, and via email.  This list has been whittled down to 11 titles.  In the coming weeks the One Maryland One Book selection committee will meet to complete the selection process, but we thought we’d share the current list with you.

Have you read any of these books?  What qualities in a book make for great reading and discussion? Tell us what you think!  Comment below or share your thoughts on One Maryland One Book Facebook page.

2013 Top 11:

AUTHOR                                                                              TITLE

Wes Moore,  The Other Wes More
Rebecca Skloot,  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Alice McDermott,  That Night
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana
Hillary Jordan,  Mudbound
Yann Martel,  The Life of Pi
Jonathan Safran Foer,  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Toni Morrison,  Home
Cornelia Nixon, Jarrettsville
Peggielene Bartels and Eleanor Herman, King Peggy
Jesmyn Ward,  Salvage the Bones

Do you want to be the first to learn of our choice for 2013 One Maryland One Book? Click here to sign up to receive our monthly Email newsletter, Opening Eyes.

One Maryland One Book is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Maryland State Department of Education. Additional support was received in 2012 from Constellation Energy, the Verizon Foundation, and M&T Bank.  OMOB is produced in partnership with the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

by Kim Popetz
This past summer I was talking with a Maryland Humanities Council staffer when she mentioned that the One Book One Maryland author would be headed my way in the fall to speak at an event.  Having read The Cellist of Sarajevo six months prior I could barely contain my excitement, but not just because I loved the book.

For the past three years I’ve worked with students at Huntingtown High School (HHS) in Calvert County. I had just learned that my partner teacher, Jeff Cunningham, received permission to revive a defunct class called Historical Investigations. He asked for help in providing the students of that class with projects that would give them the opportunity to delve deeply into history and really develop their research skills. I suggested The Cellist as a great opening project with a unique opportunity for the students to talk with the author at their own school. Jeff agreed and introduced the students to the book as soon as class began in the fall.

If you haven’t yet read The Cellist of Sarajevo (and you should) it is the fictionalized account of the real cellist who played Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor 22 days in a row to honor the deaths of 22 neighbors by bombing during the war of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He does this in an extremely public way, sitting in the crater left behind by the bomb putting his own life at risk from snipers. In the book, his act connects the disparate lives of three others trapped in Sarajevo and provides a focal point for the story.

Students in Calvert County get their books signed by author Steven Galloway.

On October 2nd the author, Steven Galloway, participated in an event at HHS that included a preview of a play based on the book by the theatre students and a haunting performance of Albinoni’s Adagio. Most of the students from the Historical Investigations class were there and had the chance to hear Mr. Galloway discuss how he developed the book; how the people of Sarajevo received it; and his view on the value of what the cellist did for his community.
It was this last piece that guided class the following day. Excited by the ideas they encountered the previous evening, students participated in a wide ranging discussion about war, art and the true meaning of civilization. We tied these ideas to a conflict more familiar to them—the war in Afghanistan—and discussed in depth an idea that Mr. Galloway had put forth: (to paraphrase) any dictator worth his salt immediately imprisons all of the artists and journalists upon seizing power. We discussed the Taliban, their suppression of art, the rise of a new arts community in Afghanistan and the relationship between art and civilization.

• Read “Everybody Dies, but Not Everybody Lives” by Antoine Rushing, Honors student at Towson University, about his experience reading The Cellist of Sarajevo.

The students are currently wrapping up research papers related to The Cellist of Sarajevo. Some have looked at separating truth from fiction in the novel. Others are exploring the historic events that led to the siege of Sarajevo and some are doing character analyses. Given the enthusiasm generated by the One Book One Maryland Event I am just as intrigued to read what the students will say in their papers as I was reading The Cellist of Sarajevo for the first time.

Kim Popetz is the Director of Education at Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum in Calvert County. She works on a variety of projects with the local public school system including the 2013/14 Historical Investigations class led by Jeff Cunningham. The students of the class will work on a variety of projects throughout the school year beyond The Cellist including analysis and research of objects from an archaeological site in Baltimore which will culminate in a small, local exhibit and research projects with the Calvert County Historical Society.

By Antoine Rushing, Towson University Student

Over the summer, I got the opportunity to read the book The Cellist of Sarajevo, and as I was reading, I could not help but think of a quote recently stated by a popular artist: “Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.” The implication of this quote is that it is possible to be alive, but not be living. It could also be said that there is a difference between living and surviving. This fact is definitely evident in The Cellist of Sarajevo.

• Click here to find One Maryland One Book discussions  and programs about The Cellist of Sarajevo near you.

Like the citizens of Sarajevo, living comes naturally when life is easy. Prior to the bombshell, people made various choices and decisions about how to spend their time, and they enjoyed themselves. They were living life. It is after the tragedy that creates the book that the citizens of Sarajevo must actively decide whether they will continue living, or choose to simply survive. Of the three main characters- Kenan, Dragan, and Arrow- only one chose to keep living. That of course, was Arrow. The interesting thing about that decision is that Arrow chose to keep living by refusing to allow her surroundings to dictate her behavior and thinking. Kenan and Dragan chose to survive by allowing themselves to believe that their fate was not in their hands, but in the hands of the men on the top of the hills. The moment that we as humans relinquish our right to make decisions, the moment when we feel that there is only one option, we have stopped living, and have begun surviving.

Antoine Rushing. Photo by Ken Stanek

I found this book to be enlightening because it encouraged me to reflect on the type of person I really am. I live in the US so it is highly unlikely that I will ever be in a situation like that in Sarajevo. This being the case I probably will never have my sense of humanity tested to the degree of the three main characters in The Cellist of Sarajevo. Despite this fact, I used the small moments in the book almost as a mirror to the type of person I am now. Kenan recognized that integral part of living is preserving the sense of community. In order to do that, he had to view life in terms of how he could contribute to the lives of others, rather than in terms of his own needs. Like Kenan, would I go out of my way to help someone if there is nothing in it for me. If I saw someone drop their books, would I help them pick them up even though I have a class to get to? I don’t know. I hope so. I will find out the next time I see someone drop something. It is in those small moments that we can choose to view life by our contributions to it rather than our needs or wants.
The book opens with the explanation of how the work we now know as “Albinoni’s Adagio” came to be. It was reconstructed from a manuscript fragment found in the aftermath of a burned library. In the novel the cellist found that fact to be awe-inspiring and it gave him hope. Throughout the novel the music, and the cellist give the people of Sarajevo hope. The cellist exemplified each day that despite the circumstances, each person must still choose his/her own fate. The music illustrated that, like Sarajevo, something that seems impossible or hopeless could be recreated or rebuilt through time an effort. That would never, will never be achieved through survival.
Antoine Rushing is an honors college student at Towson University, studying Biology. Our thanks for Antoine for allowing the Maryland Humanities Council to publish his introductory speech, given to Baltimore City School students in October during the MHC’s One Maryland One Book Author Tour, featuring Steven Galloway, author of The Cellist of Sarajevo, the 2012 pick.

by Jill Cluff, reprinted from The Cecil Whig 9.10.12

Think about what you did this morning.  Get up, hop in the shower, brush your teeth, pop something in the microwave or toaster for breakfast.  Now imagine your morning without any of those things.  You have less than a cup of cold water to wash yourself with.  You have to work in the bathroom in the dark, because the sun is coming up later now, and you have no electricity.  Say goodbye to that morning bagel or coffee – no power to run those either.  And get ready to spend all day along dangerous roads to fetch enough water to last you for the next two days.  Rinse and repeat.  (On second thought, skip the rinse – there isn’t enough water.  Just repeat.)

In our society of “what-I-want-when-I-want-it” mentality, it’s amazing how these little things can be taken for granted.  But war changes everything.  Suddenly, a small act like washing your hands and microwaving last night’s leftovers can turn into a luxury.  And yet, it is in doing these seemingly mundane tasks that you maintain sanity; they may bomb my house, but I will always have my routine to call home.   Being normal becomes the rebellion.  The Cellist of Sarajevo exploits this paradox beautifully.  “What [we] want isn’t a change, or to set things right again, but to stop things from getting worse…Perhaps the only thing that will stop it from getting worse is people doing the things they know how to do.”¹

Besieged Sarajevo becomes the backdrop for the stories of four strangers, all connected by the tragedy of what they have already seen and the ferocity of their need to survive.  In the middle of them all is the cellist.  An ordinary man with exceptional musical abilities, he mourns death by doing the only thing he knows how to do: he plays.  One day for each of the 22 people who were killed while standing in line for bread outside his building.  And in this simple act of bravery, he becomes the beating heart of a Sarajevo that once was – the memory of what will never be again.  The story of the cellist is true, though the events and people around it are fictionalized.  But somehow knowing that such a person exists is in itself, heartening.  We hear so much of movie stars and political figures that it is refreshing to finally learn of a true hero whose sacrifice and humility define him.

• “Like” One Maryland One Book on Facebook to view a photo album of Mr. Galloway’s visit to the Elkton Library

Piercing in its simplicity, the novel is the perfect combination of bitter and sweet.  In very few pages, you find a piece of yourself in each of the characters, though sometimes you may have made a different choice, were you in a similar situation.  But, as each of them learns in turn, courage is costly.  Often just getting through the day is a battleground too fierce for traverse.  At the same time, an act as small as carrying extra bottles to fill with water for a neighbor becomes momentous in its hopeful defiance.  “As long as there’s war, life is a preventative measure.”²

In honor of One Maryland, One Book, he author, Steven Galloway, is coming to Cecil County to discuss his novel, Monday October 1, at 3pm at the Elkton Central Library.  Book discussions for both adults and teens will be held at each of the branches (see schedule below).  One Maryland, One Book is sponsored by the Maryland Humanities Council, and when you register for one of the book discussions, you get to keep your copy of the book, which is well worth owning.

4.75 stars out of 5
¹ Galloway, 5
² Galloway, 222

One Maryland, One Book 2012 Cecil County Discussion Dates, Times & Places:
September 17 – 6:30 pm | North East Branch
September 20 – 7pm  | Elkton Central Library
September 20 – 3:30pm (teen) |Perryville Branch
September 24 – 4pm (teen) | Cecilton Branch
September 25 – 7pm | Cecilton Branch
September 27 – 3:30pm (teen) | Elkton Central Library
September 27 – 7pm | Perryville Branch
October 10 – 7pm | Rising Sun Branch
October 18 – 1pm |Chesapeake City Branch
October 22 – 1pm | Rising Sun Branch

Jill Cluff

Jill Cluff is a sometimes librarian who is married to one giant and mom to another.  She loves all things book and foold related—often at the same time.

Thank you to Jill Cluff and The Cecil Whig for allowing MHC to reprint Mrs. Cluff’s review of Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo. It appeared in The Cecil Whig on September 10, 2012.

by Bill Peak
First printed in the Star-Democrat on August 5, 2012. Our thanks to Bill and the Star-Democrat for allowing us to reprint his submission.

OK, I’ll admit it, sometimes an uncontrollable urge comes over me to put on a funny hat, grab a pair of binoculars, and go out and look for Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers and Short-Billed Marsh Wrens.  That’s right, I’m a bird-watcher.  I’ve tried the twelve-step program, I’ve tried the patch, but so far nothing’s been found to replace the pleasure I take in looking at birds.

And it’s not just their beauty that appeals to me.  True, the sure knowledge that the trees around us hide Scarlet Tanagers and Indigo Buntings can make it hard for me to stay at my desk, but I also delight in the life histories of these animals.  I well remember, for instance, the time I watched the travails of a dove who had built her nest on an exposed limb near our deck.  After she’d laid her eggs, it turned cold and then it began to rain.  For three days and three nights the rain fell, yet that poor bedraggled creature never once abandoned her clutch.  Hobbes might label such a life (as he did ours) “nasty, brutish, and short,” but that dove taught me something about perseverance, and the simple dignity accruing to those that care without counting the cost.

And now along comes One Maryland One Book to give me another reason to think about the small lives lived so humbly all around us.  One Maryland One Book is the program of the Maryland Humanities Council in which people all across the state read the same book at the same time.  This year’s selection, The Cellist of Sarajevo tells the story of three unrelated people who find themselves trapped in the title city during the Serbian siege of 1992.  To varying degrees each is touched by the story of a fourth character, a professional cellist who, in defiance of the snipers killing civilians all around him, goes every day at the same time to the same place in plain view of the heights from which those snipers operate and plays Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor.

Author Steven Galloway has taken the true story of Bosnian cellist Vedran Smailovi? and turned it into a modern morality tale, at once both intense thriller and exquisite work of art.  The story’s drama derives in no small part from the fact that each of its characters lives with the sure knowledge that the air around them can—and very likely soon will—fill with bullets.  Death is everywhere, and they watch for it with a vigilance that makes their lives seem in some ways more alive, more acute, than our own.

• Click here to view a calendar of One Maryland One Book events, programs, and discussions in your area.

If you want to know what this look likes in real life, watch a bird-feeder.  Birds live in a world where the slightest movement—a quivering leaf, a sailing shadow—can signal doom.  Like Sarajevans at a street market, when birds gather at a feeder they must keep one eye on the sky for harriers, another on the bushes for cats, and a third on the ground for snakes.  Their lives, however small, are lived big: all senses on high alert.  Similarly, the people of Sarajevo.  I have read and enjoyed every One Maryland One Book, but The Cellist of Sarajevo is far and away the best of the lot.  Please, if you get a chance, check out one of the library’s 87 copies, read it, and then sign up for one of the book discussions I’ll be hosting in September.  I look forward to hearing what you think.

Bill Peak writes a monthly article for the Star-Democrat about working at the Talbot County Free Library. Photo:  Bill Peak getting ready to go bird watching

Contributed by author Dan Fesperman

Last year, a voice from the siege of Sarajevo called out to me. I’d last spoken to Dario Petrlic when he was almost 14 years old, a conversation punctuated by shell blasts and sniper fire in February 1994. Only a month earlier an exploding grenade had torn open his left shoulder with a spray of shrapnel.

At the time, Dario and his family – mom, dad, and two older brothers – were living practically like moles in the suburb of Dobrinja. Author Steve Galloway only mentions Dobrinja in passing in his fine novel, and I can certainly understand why. It was nearly severed from the rest of the city, and, as I wrote then, “If Sarajevo is hell on earth, Dobrinja is its innermost circle of despair.”

The daily roulette of life which Galloway describes so aptly had its lowest odds of all in Dobrinja, where sidewalks were trenches, lawns were cemeteries, and virtually every building was cordoned by sandbags. A novel set there would have been too claustrophobic for most readers to bear.

Dario’s father, Jurag, had made only one harrowing journey out of Dobrinja since the beginning of the siege – a ride inside an armored vehicle that felt “like a voyage inside a coffin” – and upon arriving at Sarajevo’s besieged city center he had felt liberated: “I thought, I am in a normal city again. The people who live there, they can walk around. They go to markets, to cafes. I envy them.”
In Dobrinja, the Petrlic family almost never went outdoors except to step onto their balcony, which by some minor miracle wasn’t vulnerable to sniper fire. Although, as Dario had discovered, it wasn’t safe from shelling. He was standing there when he was wounded by a blast which killed a man in the courtyard below and partially deafened his brother Mario.

I spent perhaps an hour with the Petrlic family, chatting at times about the way some people had simply given up and no longer took precautions after two years of siege. I filed a story and never returned to Dobrinja.
Then, in the summer of last year, Dario’s email arrived. After more than 17 years he had tracked down my story, and then me.
“Now I am 31 years old,” he wrote, “working, learning and celebrating the life whenever I can do that.”
We corresponded further.

Dario had earned a university degree, was working as a sales engineer for a multinational corporation, and had moved to Zagreb. But the best news was that everyone in his family had survived the war. They never gave up, never stopped taking precautions. In their daily struggle against “the men on the hills,” as Galloway calls them, the Petrlic family had never yielded on the most important battlefront – the one inside their heads.

“My brother Mario is Croatian military pilot and brother Tomislav has graduated from the Faculty of Economics. My parents are well – after all they can’t complain. ” – Dan Fesperman

MHC would like to thank Mr. Fesperman for sharing this contribution in celebration of this year’s One Maryland One Book selection, The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.

Dan Fesperman is a novelist and former reporter for the Baltimore Sun. He covered the war in Bosnia while serving as the paper’s Berlin correspondent, and Sarajevo became the setting for his first novel, Lie in the Dark. His latest novel, The Double Game, was published last month by Knopf.

Contributed by Paul Mathews, Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University

During a dangerous moment of reflection on an otherwise harried day, a man named Kenan pauses to consider a musician playing the cello to the accompaniment of distant gunfire.  The cellist, who remains nameless throughout Steven Galloway’s novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo, becomes the subject of much speculation and concern in the war-torn city after beginning a series of performances in the rubble of a destroyed market.

The story of Kenan is one of three parallel narratives found in Galloway’s work, which explores how several Sarajevans make sense of the musician’s performances.  Some cling to the recitals as a semblance of humanity in a world that is collapsing around them.  Others hope the daring act will capture the attention of an outside world that seems to have forsaken them.  Still others will stop at nothing to prevent a pathetic spectacle from shaming the international community into a decisive intervention.

Kenan, a veritable everyman, has far more practical concerns. Amidst shelling and sniper fire, his sole task is to travel across the ravaged city to fetch water for his family and an ungrateful neighbor.  The trip is eventful and harrowing. In a particularly transitional moment during his errand, Kenan hears the mournful strains of an adagio and asks himself, “What could the man possibly hope to accomplish by playing music in the street?”

• Click here to find a One Maryland One Book Discussion or program near you!

I remember asking myself a similar question when the Occupy Wall Street protestors took to the streets in September 2011.  Such questions are not so much a matter of inquiry as an expression of exasperation: we think we are witnessing a futile, even petulant act of protest.

In the United States, we associate protest with the large demonstrations of the 1960s, when tens of thousands of people assembled to campaign for civil rights or to protest the war in Vietnam.  The oppressive police states of the Eastern Bloc did not permit such assemblies.  Behind the Iron Curtain, an act of protest was literally an act of suicide: most notably, public self-immolation.

As a city in the former Yugoslavia, Sarajevo was not part of the Eastern Bloc.  The transaction of personal sacrifice for public reform would seem alien to Kenan, who probably only knew of such horrific acts as something they did in Prague or Warsaw during the bad times.

Yet, when similarly bad times descend on the former Yugoslavia, the armed forces fighting for the city quickly understand the potential significance of the cellist’s actions. Sarajevans risk their lives, snaking through city streets that have become shooting galleries to hear the cellist play.  Regardless of his intentions, the cellist’s performances draw attention to the savagery of the conflict.

The musician at the center of such high stakes is a comparatively minor character. Prior to the market massacre, the cellist – fictional parallel of Vedran Smailovi?, the real Cellist of Sarajevo – was simply struggling to remain a cellist. In the aftermath, without an orchestra, opera house, or other performance prospects, the virtuoso still practices every day for reasons he probably cannot even articulate. Playing the cello becomes the only thing that gives him hope.  On days when even his normal practice routine fails to restore hope, the cellist plays one particular piece, an adagio, set aside as a last resort.

The cellist’s relationship with the adagio is a familiar type of behavior, usually exhibited by people who manage unhealthy habits and obsessions. The discomfort caused by such routines becomes clear when we map the behavior to less savory pursuits:  the incipient stalker who tries to last several days before driving past the house of a former lover; the fad dieter who rewards a day of unhealthy fasting by binging on ice cream; the despairing soul that holds to only two drinks except on the days that seem too long to wait for two more drinks.

In making such analogies, I do not mean to suggest that playing music is any way unhealthy.  Given the state of Sarajevo during the siege, I doubt the cellist could have done anything more worthwhile.  And given the satisfaction of musical accomplishment, I can think of few things better for anyone on any day.  However, managing stress and satisfaction, whether in the form of addiction or musical accomplishment, is often a private matter.

By playing music in that terrible time, Galloway’s cellist is managing the intimate struggles of his daily life. By taking those struggles to the market, the cellist is simply doing the thing that artists do best: placing personal struggles on public display.

When Kenan first asks what the cellist hopes to accomplish, he certainly doesn’t have the presence of mind to think through such things.  The soldiers and politicians who imagine the cellist is staging a dramatic protest are only half-right: it is indeed a demonstration, but one more personal than political.

Nothing holds more truth for more people than the agonized epiphany of a single person.  In Galloway’s novel, exposure to the cellist’s performances fundamentally changes each of the major characters.  In real life, the performances of Vedran Smailovi? captured the attention of the world, and NATO was eventually compelled to intervene in the conflict.

Within the broad metrics introduced by Kenan’s question, the twenty-two impromptu performances in the destroyed market are quite an accomplishment.  However, in the more meaningful exchange between performer and audience, the cellist embraces the grief and horror of a crumbling Sarajevo and dares its captive citizens to join him in an adagio of the last resort: the courage of implausible hope.

Paul Mathews is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University. A composer of opera and chamber music, Mathews was born in Baltimore and attended Maryland Public Schools.  www.about.me/paulmathews

Visit the Baltimore Book Festival on Sunday, September 30 at noon to hear a Peabody Conservatory student play Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor before Cellist of Sarajevo author Steven Galloway speaks, answer questions, and sign copies of this year’s One Maryland One Book.  Steven Galloway then travels throughout Maryland. Click here to view a complete author tour schedule. 

Have you ever wondered what exactly a muskrat is? How about how Enoch Pratt came to make his invaluable contributions to Baltimore and the State of Maryland? (Bet you didn’t know he started off selling mules’ shoes!) Have you ever imagined what it would be like to live in a war torn country—whether America in 1812 or Bosnia in 1996? You’ll discover all this and much, MUCH more getting involved with the Maryland Humanities Council (MHC). For, you see, Marylanders are passionate about these, among so many other subjects.

Amelia works a sharing station during the Chesapeake Folk Festival

Working with MHC, as a summer intern, I was able to experience many of these passions first-hand. I contributed to the upcoming Literary Walking Tour app and in doing so I collaborated with citizens who lived for the city’s architecture, and those who lived in it; some who could recite Carl Sandburg from memory, while others could recite the history of the semi-colon. Whether writing, researching, or walking the city, each day was a new discovery. Although, I worked principally with the Maryland Center for the Book, my experience was not limited to my work on the tour. The Maryland Humanities Council, like the community it serves, is a tight-knit group—everyone eager to help everyone else.  Therefore, in my short time at the council I was able to jawbone with Ecuadorian sailors while volunteering at Sailabration; contemplated resurrecting John F. Kennedy as part of next year’s Chautauqua; learned about Fortune and his bones through the grants program; travelled to and from Sarajevo through this year’s One Maryland One Book, The Cellist of Sarajevo; deliberated skipjack restoration while debating ecosystem maintenance with Eastern Shore residents at a sharing station with the Let’s Be Shore program; and much more.

Amelia with a sailor during Sailabration

As my experience illustrates, working with MHC, you’ll not only encounter countless unique passions, but also help Marylanders share their interests with one another, educating their neighbors and themselves in the process. Witnessing understanding, common ground, and friendship blossom from these disparate, unique, and sometimes even zany interests is one of the most rewarding experiences you can imagine.

Passion at the Humanities Council is not limited to the Marylanders MHC serves—quite the opposite! Each and every staff member, from the executive director to the weekly volunteer, has their own passions: a passion for life, a passion for their favorite nugget of the humanities, as well as for the humanities in general, and above all– a passion for serving their community. These passions invigorate their work, electrify the MHC office, and elevate MHC programs beyond their already superb level.

Whatever your passion, you can find it, support it, and share it through the Maryland Humanities Council. Where else in the course of a day could you edit an account of young Gertrude Stein’s life in Baltimore, address a letter to a baroness, learn the history of the Beltway thanks to a Maryland History Day participant, debate dystopian literature, see the bullet that killed Lincoln and the skeletal remains of the first monkey in space, all before lunch?

Amelia T. Grabowski is a senior at Gettysburg College studying English and History. She hopes to continue working in the public humanities after she graduates.

This spring, MHC was honored to take part in a partnership with the Towson University Electronic Media & Film Department’s Corporate Video Class, under the deft hand of Dr. David Reiss. Teams of students were paired up with nonprofits to create short video presentations which tell each organization’s narrative. Not only does this provide essential educational and real-world experience for graduating seniors, but creates dynamic content that we hope will raise awareness about our work across the state.

It was a challenge to choose from our many worthy programs, but we focused efforts on three:  MHC’s Chautauqua living history series, One Maryland One Book, our state-wide reading and discussion program, and Maryland History Day.  Our filmcrew interviewed partners and participants in Calvert, Montgomery, Carroll, and Cecil counties and Baltimore City.

Our gratitude to our student filmmakers, Edward Shirk and Sam Parker, and their professor, Dr. Reiss. Our thanks also goes out to MHC staff, especially Jayme Kilburn, all of our amazing interview subjects. Photographs used were taken by Ken Stanek, the College of Southern Maryland, and National History Day.

Take a look and let us know what you think! Has an MHC program opened your ears, your eyes, your mind?  Tell us about it!

Bill Peak writes a monthly article for the Star-Democrat about working at the Talbot County Free Library. Thank you, Bill, for allowing us to reprint this in our OMOB blog—and for your thoughts about our One Maryland One Book Selection.

An Indian Visits the Talbot County Free Library, by Bill Peak
Printed in the Star-Democrat, August 14, 2011

It’s become an annual event in my life. Every year the Maryland Humanities Council selects their One Maryland One Book (the book people all across the state will read more or less at the same time), and every year I worry that the work selected—inevitably a book written for adults—will have little appeal for teens and pre-teens, an age-group we very much want to interest in reading. So what did I think when I learned that this year, for the first time in the history of the program, they’d chosen a work of teen fiction? I worried that our adult patrons wouldn’t read it. (Note to Maryland Humanities Council: “Library guys aren’t easy to please.”)

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not only was the work written for teens, it was written and drawn for teens. That’s right, throughout Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” there are hand-drawn cartoons. Now you have to understand, when it comes to baseball and literature I am a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. Baseball should be played only on living, breathing, sun-drenched grass, and literature should enter our minds only through the medium of living, breathing, meaning-drenched words. There are things a cartoonist can do with his pencil that a writer can’t do with hers … and vice versa. For a writer to resort to cartooning to make his point strikes me as an admission of defeat: I am not a good enough writer to communicate this with words, so I am going to draw you a picture instead.

But one of the hats I wear at the Talbot County Free Library reads “One Maryland One Book Coordinator,” which means that, however reluctantly, I had to check out a copy of Alexie’s book and read it.

And I have to admit, I couldn’t put it down. Told from the point of view of a young Indian boy who, at the beginning of his freshman year, makes the momentous, politically incorrect decision to attend a white high school “off the rez,” the book is an exploration of all the cross-currents of self-hate and reverse discrimination that can sometimes afflict today’s under classes. A story that one might reasonably expect to be very sad turns out (thanks to the great cockeyed wit of its teenaged narrator) to be not only funny but, occasionally, laugh-out-loud funny as well. It also manages to stay true to the experience of adolescent males the world over … which is code for: “Some people may find some of the material in this book morally objectionable.” But, then again, I suspect some people may find adolescent males in toto morally objectionable.

Oh, and about those cartoons. They end up being a lot of fun too, extending and enhancing the story Sherman Alexie has to tell in the same way that Sidney Paget’s original illustrations extended and enhanced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s. So stop by the Talbot County Free Library when you get a chance and check out a copy of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” then sign up for one of the book discussions I’ll be hosting on September 22 and 26. Who knows, we may all find our opinion improved of the sometimes clownish, sometimes glorious, adolescent male.