About The Big Read
The Big Read – Join the Hunt is coming to Spartanburg. For the second year in a row, The Spartanburg County Public Libraries has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to host the Big Read.
The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. Libraries, museums and public agencies around the country receive grants ranging from $2,500 to $20,000 to promote community-based reading programs featuring activities such as book discussions, lectures, movie screenings and performing arts events.
Spartanburg was funded at the highest level. Local sponsors include The Friends of the Libraries, NBSC, The Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg, at&t and Abstract Printing.
Spartanburg County will read the book The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. Over 2900 custom printed, paperback copies of this book will be given away free of charge to anyone interested in participating in the program. The books will be available at all Library locations during the program period which will last from Oct. 4 until Nov. 1. Braille and audio additions will be donated to the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind.
Free book-related programs will be offered at various locations around the county during the program period. The entire event will kick off on Saturday evening, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. with an after hours, murder mystery program at the Headquarters Library. Additionally there will be book discussions, film programs, lectures, an exhibit of Maltese Falcon and Dashiell Hammett artifacts, mystery writing workshops, live falconry programs, live theatrical readings performed by The Spartanburg Little Theatre, lectures on crime scene investigation and a scavenger hunt featuring twenty-inch tall plaster falcons created by local artists.
Learn more about The Maltese Falcon
Learn more about Dashiell Hammett