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Book Circles! Libraries! Beer!

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It’s time for the DCF’s 2nd annual Building Opportunity Keynote and Book Circles*!  This year we’re moving from Our Kids to Our Towns. Here’s the story:

How can we strengthen communities? What have communities across the country done to make themselves stronger, more resilient, more exciting places to be? How do communities address economic dislocation, loss of hope, opioid problems, and other challenges?

Those are the questions at the center of Our Towns, the new book from James and Deborah Fallows. On Nov. 6, the Fallowses will be the speakers at DCF’s 2nd annual Building Opportunity Keynote. The couple traveled over 100,000 miles across America – from Eastport Maine to Duluth, Minnesota; Ajo, Arizona and Demopolis, Alabama. Their answers involve art, libraries, entrepreneurialism, active citizens, beer and more.

(Yes, beer. Breweries turn out to have a big place in this book – the Fallowses are clearly my kind of people. As for libraries, well just read the book and you’ll see more.)

It’s a book about optimism and opportunity and hard work and hope. You’ll be able to buy tickets for the event soon.

But right now, sign up your book group, or form a book group, so you can read it in advance. With help from the Delaware Humanities Council, we have 500 copies of the book we’re giving away, so that the audience for this event will be ready to engage. Last year we gave away over 450 copies of Robert Putnam’s Our Kids. Join the discussion, and help us think about solutions for Our Towns.

(By the way, the event this year will be simulcast in several locations across the state. Watch for more information about that, too.)

*This program is partially funded by a grant from Delaware Humanities, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.