An annual county-wide reading program that encourages people to read and discuss the same book. In 2009, the program was called Oregon Reads and became a state-wide effort, focusing on Oregon history, specifically the experience of Japanese-Americans during and after WWII.

Every year, ancillary activities are held in each library branch. Book discussions, activities, informational lectures and more are offered during the program. Keep your eye on the Jackson County Library System web site calendar for details  http://www.co.jackson.or.us/Calendar.asp?SectionID=15.

Jackson County Reads in 2010 focuses on the book by Greg Mortenson and David Relin called Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace, One School At A Time.  The libraries throughout the county will offer activities and lectures about the book and related topics. See www.jcls.org for details.

Here is Ginny Fowler Hicks reading her book about The Mountain Star, about her brother, Charley Fowler, an international climber and photographer who passed away in an avalanche in China, pursuing his passion. He climbed and photograhed the mountains in Afghanistan, Nepal and Central Asia -- where Mortenson's book takes place.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 3, 2010

Jackson County Reads -- One Book One Community

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

A Reading Program sponsored by the Jackson County Library Foundation and Jackson County Library Services

Contact:  Shelley Austin, Executive Director
Jackson County Library Foundation
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
541.774.6572
www.jclf.org

The Jackson County Library Foundation announces Jackson County Reads, a reading program co-sponsored by the Library Foundation and the Jackson County Library Services.

Jackson County Reads encourages everyone in our community to read and discuss one book. The chosen title for 2010 is Three Cups of Tea:  One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time. Written by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, it is an inspiring account of one man's campaign to build schools in the most dangerous, remote, and anti-American reaches of Central Asia.

Jackson County Reads encourages readers to read the book now and beginning in early March, participate in book related activities in local libraries, and to attend lectures by local presenters on topics raised in the book. All 15 libraries in our system host activities and discussions about the book and other topics, and we invite speakers to make presentations about related topics during the course of the program.

Please see www.jcls.org for program details and information about events in your community library.

Jackson County Reads Special Features include these guests:

Teru Kuwayama
March 13, 2010 at 7PM
North Medford High School
1900 N. Keene Way Drive
Free to the public

As a featured speaker for the Jackson County Reads program, documentary photographer, Teru Kuwayama, frequently finds himself on the front lines in Afghanistan, his “hands down favorite country on earth.”  His work has appeared in Time, Life, Newsweek and National Geographic.

Teru Kuwayama, 38, is a 2009-2010 Knight Fellow at Stanford University. He has also received fellowships from the Alicia Patterson Foundation and w. Eugene Smith Fund for his reporting of Afghanistan and Pakistan. His work on the Tibetan refugee diaspora received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Alexia Foundation for World Peace, and has been exhibited at the Open Society Institute and United nations headquarters. In 2004, Esquire magazine profiled him among the ‘Best and Brightest” for his reportage on Iraq. In 2005, Photo District News cited his work in Kashmir in a selection of the most iconic images in contemporary photography. His work has appeared in Time, Life, Newsweek, National Geographic, Vibe, and Doubletake. He is the co-founder of Lightstalkers, a nonprofit web-based network of photographers, filmmakers, media workers and members of the military and NGO communities. He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.






Dr. Andrew Marcus and Julia Bergman
March 18, 2010 at 7PM
North Medford High School
1900 N. Keene Way Drive
Free to the public

Dr. Marcus and Ms Bergman, among the founding board members of Greg Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute, will share the early history of the organization, their stories, experiences, and images of Central Asia. Both are Advisory Trustees of the Central Asia Institute.

Dr. Marcus is the Head of the Geography Department at the University of Oregon. He is currently a professor teaching hydrology, geomorphology, and remote sensing. He holds degrees from Stanford, Arizona State, and the University of Colorado. Dr. Marcus has been involved with the Central Asia Institute nearly from its inception, serving as Board Chairman from 1996 – 2004.  Though no longer on the Board, he remains committed to the organization and its activities.

Julia Bergman is a library system administrator for the City College of San Francisco. She served the Central Asia Institute as Board Chairman from 1997 – 2009.

The Book:  Three  Cups of Tea

In 1993 Greg Mortenson was the exhausted survivor of a failed attempt to ascend K2, an American climbing bum wandering emaciated and lost through Pakistan's Karakoram Himalaya. After he was taken in and nursed back to health by the people of an impoverished Pakistani village, Mortenson promised to return one day and build them a school. From that rash, earnest promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time—Greg Mortenson's one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban.

Award-winning journalist David Oliver Relin has collaborated on this spellbinding account of Mortenson's incredible accomplishments in a region where Americans are often feared and hated. In pursuit of his goal, Mortenson has survived kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, repeated death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and children. But his success speaks for itself. At last count, his Central Asia Institute had built fifty-five schools. Three Cups of Tea is at once an unforgettable adventure and the inspiring true story of how one man really is changing the world—one school at a time.

The book has remained a number one New York Times bestseller since its release in 2006. The book is also a popular university freshman or campus read on about three dozen campuses, and has been chosen for One City One Book community reads in over 300 cities, and published in over 39 countries internationally, and used on over 100 University and college campuses as a Freshman Experience, Honor's program or campus-wide read book. The US Military now requires enlisted personnel to read it.

Reviews of Three Cups of Tea:

Three Cups of Tea has grown into a global phenomenon, translated into 29 languages with 2.5 million copies in print. More than 200 communities have made it a "common read," and it is now in the curriculum of 80 universities and hundreds of schools. 

Cleveland Plain Dealer 8.21.09

"Three Cups of Tea is one of the most remarkable adventure stories of our time. Greg Mortenson’s dangerous and difficult quest to build schools in the wildest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only a thrilling read, it’s proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world."

Tom Brokaw

Three Cups of Tea is beautifully written. It is also a critically important book at this time in history. The governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan are both failing their students on a massive scale. The work Mortenson is doing, providing the poorest students with a balanced education, is making them much more difficult for the extremist madrassas to recruit.

Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia