Welcome

Greetings,

As Mayor and on behalf of the City of Chicago, I invite you to participate in the Spring 2010 One Book, One Chicago program presented by the Chicago Public Library. This award-winning program encourages all Chicagoans to come together with friends and neighbors to share and discuss a great work of literature.

This spring, we have selected the novel Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín. Winner of the prestigious Costa Fiction Award, Brooklyn has been praised as the finest work yet from this highly respected international author. Tóibín, who was born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland, shares the story of a young woman in the 1950s who leaves her small Irish town to settle in Brooklyn, New York in order to find work.

This selection is sure to please readers from every part of Chicago. It is a story about family, home, identity and the heartbreak that comes with change. Living in a city of immigrants, Chicagoans will find it remarkable to imagine a woman, nearly 60 years ago, braving a new city alone in order to find work, with occasional letters from home as her only comfort. They will be drawn in by Tóibín’s prose and by his heroine Eilis Lacey, who faces very difficult decisions in the course of the novel.

You can find a copy of Brooklyn at your neighborhood Chicago Public Library or local bookstore. Please take part in one of the many book discussions planned in libraries, bookstores, community centers and universities throughout April and join us for any number of events celebrating the book this spring, including an appearance by Mr. Tóibín on April 21 at the Harold Washington Library Center. One Book, One Chicago also offers the opportunity for all Chicagoans to discuss the book with readers from Ireland, in a joint online discussion forum presented with the Galway Arts Centre, at onebookonechicago.tumblr.com.

Sincerely,

Richard M. Daley
Mayor