Nassau and Suffolk County public libraries are gearing up for Long Island Reads, the annual island-wide initiative to promote reading during National Library Week, April 4-11.
Building community through a shared literary experience, Long Island Reads invites all Long Islanders to read the same book and participate in discussions and related events. This year’s Long Island Reads selection is The Vanishing Half by novelist Brit Bennett.
Author Brit Bennett, recipient of the 2021 Long Island Reads Selection Award, will appear at a virtual event via Crowdcast hosted by the Plainview-Old Bethpage Library to discuss “The Vanishing Half” on Sunday, April 11 at 2 p.m. This event is free; all are welcome.
Free tickets are available beginning Monday, March 1 at 9:30 a.m. through Nassau and Suffolk public libraries and through https://longislandreads.wordpress.com. Ticket holders will receive an email link to the Crowdcast webinar event prior to the program.
Copies of “The Vanishing Half” are available for borrowing in many formats through all Long Island libraries and for purchase through Book Revue in Huntington and their website: https://www.bookrevue.com/signed-vanishing-half. Book purchasers will receive a bookplate signed by the author.
Bennett teaches in the Creative Writing and Literature Program at Stony Brook University,
Southampton. A bold and skillful storyteller, Brit graduated from Stanford University and earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan. The Vanishing Half was an instant NYT bestseller which received rave reviews, was chosen as a Good Morning America Book Club pick and named a Best Book of 2020 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and many others.
The Vanishing Half is the story of twin sisters Stella and Desiree, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two different worlds, one Black and one white. In addition to the April 11 virtual author event, there will be book discussions and related virtual programs and performances hosted by public libraries across Long Island in connection to the island-wide celebration of the Long Island Reads 2021 Selection, The Vanishing Half.
For more information about this event, contact Long Island Reads co-chairs Janet Schneider at jschneider@peninsulapublic.org or Mara Zonderman at maraz@westhamptonlibrary.org.
