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This year’s One Book, One Community title is Kingfish, by local political historian, Richard D. White, Jr. Librarians braved the rain and wind to announce the book at this past Saturday’s Louisiana Book Festival, and information and events are showing up all over the library’s website.

The One Book, One Community concept started in 1998 with the Washington Center for the Book’s project, “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book”; today, cities and towns all over the nation strengthen their communities through a celebration of reading. 2016 will see a new governor for Louisiana and the election of a new President of the United States; what better way to celebrate democratic tradition than to read about the ways it has been manipulated?

Kingfish details Huey P. Long’s rise to power both as governor and senator, focusing on what he tried to accomplish for Louisiana and for the nation and on the not-always-ethical tactics he used. Material was drawn from interviews with some of Long’s closest cronies and some of his fiercest enemies, in an attempt to let the reader decide whether Long was a simple demagogue, benevolent dictator, or true delegate of Louisiana’s disenfranchised. Either way, the reforms he forced into place to help Louisiana citizens living in poverty made him an enemy of trade unions and big business in the state.

The library has the book available in physical, e-book, and audio formats, available at any branch and through Overdrive; check out a copy today to join in, and take a look at our Kingfish infoguide for more books like this one, as well as info on upcoming and past events, background reads on some of Long’s favorite projects (like education), books and activities for kids and teens, and more.

It’s here. It’s finally here.

National Novel Writing Month is based on the idea that it’s possible to write an entire novel of a minimum of 50,000 words in a single month, and more than that, that it’s fun! You can write about anything you want as long as it’s fictional and it’s all part of the same plot – or you can go rogue and write ten 5,000-word short stories, or fifty 1,000-word essays, or 50,000 one-word poems. Pretty much anything goes.

On the NaNoWriMo (Nan-No-Rye-Moe) website, you can set up your novel, track your word count progress, earn cool badges, hang out on the forums with other new and experienced Nano-ers, and join a local region!

The Baton rouge area’s home to the Red Stick Wrimos, and the lovely people who claim membership there will be happy to show you the ropes and get you settled in to your first NaNo experience. Home regions also do word wars with other NaNo groups, in which the group that writes the most words in the shortest amount of time wins bragging rights.

The library is here to help! We’ve got an infoguide full of resources for local writers, and we’re planning no fewer than ten write-in events at three of our branches. If you need some inspiration or want some company, join your fellow writers for a concentrated writing session to up your word count and push through writer’s block.

It is often said that everyone has at least one book inside of them. Take this opportunity to find out what yours is about!

There’s a lot of stuff going on this weekend in our fair city, and none of us are going to want to miss any of it. Even if it means getting a little wet.

First stop for kids and grown-ups should definitely be the Louisiana Book Festival, happening in downtown Baton Rouge from 10:00 AM-5:00 PM come snow or rain or heat or gloom of night (like the Post Office, but without the threat of utility bills)! Stop by the bookmobile and the library’s tents to check out all kinds of neat stuff. You can also stop by the Main Street Market for breakfast and local produce as long as you get there before 1:00.

The Halloween Parade will walk by just a few blocks down. Because of the weather, the parade has been pushed up to 9:30 AM. It will still follow the same route and stop in several locations to accept donations of canned goods and other non-perishable food items.

If it’s not raining, by some whim of local air pressure systems, and if you like science, you should also stop by the Highland Road Park Observatory’s Fall Day, happening from 10:00-12:00. (If we recall correctly from our college days, they’ve got some very cool displays with liquid nitrogen to look forward to.) (Liquid nitrogen freezes things, you see, and – ) This event is for Science Academy Cadets ages 8-12 and their chauffeurs, and costs $5 for in-parish kids and $6 for out-of-parish kids. (All you have to do to become a Science Academy Cadet is show up, basically, but you can also pre-register on Brec’s WebTrac by looking for “Activities” under “Observatory.”)

Due to the sky’s recent attempts to teach us about what kinds of things can be used as flotation devices in an emergency (meaning, threats of lightning), Mayor Kip Holden has moved trick-or-treating to Friday, October 30th, from 6:00-8:00 PM. But pretty much nothing stands in the way of a group of kids and a sugar high, so be on the look-out for some tiny pirates and superheroes to show up on your doorstep. Remember to keep your porch light on to let them know you’ve got the goods.

If you don’t “do” Halloween, but you still want something to do this weekend, the Ascension Community Theater is putting on The Addams Family, and our own Theatre Baton Rouge‘s production of The Miracle Worker opens this Friday! Have a great weekend, Baton Rouge!