Now in its 10th year, the program is a collaboration between the university and city to foster community discussion about one novel each fall, geared toward good reading and good companionship.

A lengthy process
Since its inception, One Book, One Community strived to bring two very different facets of East Lansing’s population together — students and permanent residents.

Typically, the committee reads through about 100 books each year to find a good fit for both groups, said Ami Van Antwerp, communications coordinator for the city of East Lansing.

Van Antwerp, who joined the committee in 2006, said the criteria includes the feasibility of bringing the author to speak with readers, the relevance of themes to MSU students and discussion possibilities for programs.

Past books include “Farenheit 451,” “Frankenstein,” “The Kite Runner,” “The Glass Castle” and, last year’s pick, “Zeitoun,” by Dave Eggers.

This year, the committee selected Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” a novel about 9-year-old Oskar Schell and his family in the aftermath of 9/11. The author, who initially was scheduled to visit East Lansing for events Aug. 28-29, was unable to attend because of travel restrictions caused by Hurricane Irene.

Foer’s visit has been rescheduled for 7 p.m. Sept. 25 at Wharton Center’s Cobb Great Hall, Van Antwerp said.

Van Antwerp said having an author visit the community to speak about their book brings the effect of the books to another level for many of the participants in the program.

“It’s just touched groups of people in different ways,” Van Antwerp said. “There are special connections that are made between people.”

Recent changes
In an attempt to reach out to a younger population, the One Book, One Community planning committee branched out from its initial idea of discussion-based activities and added several new programs in recent years, including an “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” themed scavenger hunt and a One Book, One Coffee series, which pairs one student and one resident to discuss the book on a more intimate level.

Book-themed programs are scheduled for both students and residents throughout the month.
More than 20 people have signed up for the One Book, One Coffee program so far, and interested students and residents still can sign up for the series and other events online.

MSU’s director of community relations Ginny Haas said an annual survey of incoming freshmen determined the number of students participating in One Book, One Community event has increased through the years. About 55 percent of freshmen said they read “Frankenstein,” the second book chosen for One Book, One Community, and the number for 2010’s pick “Zeitoun” was about 70 percent, an encouraging increase for the program, she said.

Haas attributes the upward trend to book choices and activities designed to be more appealing to the student community.

“(We) want to keep the things that the community members like, but we want to make events that are attractive to the students,” she said.

To read or not to read
Although surveys taken by the One Book, One Community program show readership has increased, some students don’t bother to crack open the novels assigned to them by the university.

Social work freshman Samantha Bloom read “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” but said several of her peers neglected to read the novel.

“It’s the summer, and everyone’s not wanting to do school work,” she said. “It’s different for everyone — some people may have liked it, some not.”

Others see the university One Book requirement as more of an option, engineering freshman Jacob Trayers said. Trayers did not make it through the entirety of “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” before the Aug. 29 University Welcome ceremony, and though he didn’t dislike the portions he read, he said he could see why some students might not bother finishing.

“I didn’t really get a good definition of it (from the portion he read), but it’d be a confusing book for a lot of people,” Trayers said.

Making an impact
East Lansing City Manager Ted Staton has been involved with the One Book, One Community program since its inception but said a discussion on “The Soloist” stands out in his mind.

Staton’s mother passed away on the night of a One Book, One Community event that year, and watching a showing of the film with the same name was one of the last things she did while alive.

“(‘The Soloist’) was the last movie she ever saw, the last story that was ever told to her,” Staton said.

As the program has grown, Staton said One Book, One Community has an even greater impact among the student population and permanent residents. Citing a meet-and-greet with the Zeitoun family, the subject of last year’s One Book choice “Zeitoun,” Staton said the merging of student and resident populations was what the program meant to accomplish all along.

“The (meet-and-greet) was exactly the kind of program that we’d hoped would occur with One Book, One Community,” Staton said. “We envisioned that there would be this large mix of student and non-student residents, and that’s the kind of crowd it was.”

One Book’s 2010 novel struck a particular chord with social work junior Kristin Steiner. After participating in the AmeriCorps program and volunteering in New Orleans to help repair the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, reading about what happened from a different perspective was a moving experience, she said.

Steiner said the opportunity to read such compelling books is not an opportunity students and others should opt out of.

“I know a lot of freshmen don’t really read the books chosen. … (But) I think everyone should know about it,” Steiner said.