Wood Library presents The Big Read: Canandaigua Reads Edgar Allan Poe, October 1-31.  Join us and our many community partners for a month-long series of events in celebration of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short stories and poems. Visit The Big Read website for details about the Masquerade Ball at Sonnenberg Gardens (October 2), book discussions, dramatic readings, talks and lectures, films, writing workshops, children’s crafts, play and choral performances – and more. For information and browse the collection of Poe’s writings, visit your local libraries — Canandaigua Academy Library and Wood Library.

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest.

One of the best ways to discover books that you might want to spend some time with is to see what other people think about them. This is where booksellers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble excel — without the ability to actually let you hold the book, these sites have to give you as much information as they can to help you make the decision to buy it (or at least borrow it from your local library!)

Here are a few blurbs about Suzanne Collins’ post-apocalyptic thriller The Hunger Games:

“I was so obsessed with this book I had to take it with me out to dinner and hide it under the edge of the table so I wouldn’t have to stop reading… The Hunger Games is amazing.” — Stephenie Meyer

“[The Hunger Games is a] jarring, speed-rap of a novel that generates nearly constant suspense… I couldn’t stop reading.” — Stephen King

Some pretty solid endorsements. But what if you want to actually read a few pages, to see what all the fuss is about? No problem…Amazon and Barnes & Noble both provide the first chapter for free. Check it out…

1. Follow the link for The Hunger Games at Barnes & Noble
2. Click the Features tab
3. Read like crazy!

It it’s a good book (and this one is), hopefully you’ll want to seek it out!