New Canaan Library has made its “One Book New Canaan” selection for this year—a work of nonfiction that “brings splendidly to life,” one prominent reviewer said, the people and events of the summer of 1927. In creating a series of community events designed to help New Canaanites connect with Bill Bryson’s “One Summer: America 1927,” and each other, the library will convert its Adrian Lamb Room for one night into a speakeasy—accessible by password and complete with black wallpaper, sawdust and bunting. Said Programming Librarian Erinn Paige: “1920s dress is optional, but I think a lot of fringe is in our future.”
“One Book New Canaan” will launch and run through the month of March, and dozens of copies of Bryson’s book are available now (see here). The idea behind “One Book” is to create a platform, through programming, where people of all ages and interests can engage with a single story, Paige said. “We at the library are a community hub that provide that space for that conversation that then goes back home to the dinner table, back out into the community, so different people who might not always run into each other have that kernel of something they shared, something interesting that they learned at the library, or learned in that book.”
Bryson’s book was chosen in part, Paige said, because it looks at “so many different aspects of American history at a time when we were poised to be the world power that, in many ways, used to be Europe.”
“You used to look to Europe for technological innovation at that time, for the benchmark for good financial practice or financial practice that would really impact the world.
