{"id":67113,"date":"2012-10-12T10:01:32","date_gmt":"2012-10-12T14:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=67113"},"modified":"2012-10-15T08:22:36","modified_gmt":"2012-10-15T12:22:36","slug":"uconn-reads-program-announces-the-great-gatsby-as-2012-13-book-selection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/10\/uconn-reads-program-announces-the-great-gatsby-as-2012-13-book-selection\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Reads Program Announces The Great Gatsby as 2012-13 Book Selection"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is this year’s choice for UConn Reads\u00a0 (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Great Gatsby<\/em> by F. Scott Fitzgerald has been named the UConn Reads book selection for 2012-13, announced the UConn Reads Selection Committee today.<\/p>\n

The committee, chaired by Associate Professor Anne D\u2019Alleva in the School of Fine Arts, narrowed nearly 200 classic-fiction nominations submitted by members of the University community to four finalists: Fitzgerald\u2019s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God<\/em> by Zora Neale Hurston, One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/em> by Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, and A Farewell to Arms<\/em> by Ernest Hemingway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of coming to a decision, every single book on that list would be wonderful to read,\u201d says D\u2019Alleva.<\/p>\n

In choosing the 2012-13 UConn Reads title, the committee considered the appeal of each book to the diverse range of participants taking part in the UConn Reads program \u2013 UConn students, staff, faculty, and alumni, as well as the wider community, including numerous area high schools that have expressed interest in the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of our discussion around those semifinalists was really about what kind of book is the right kind of book for this sort of community reading project,\u201d D\u2019Alleva says.<\/p>\n

Although all of the finalist titles were strong contenders, The Great Gatsby <\/em>eventually became the frontrunner. The classic novel, set on Long Island in the Roaring Twenties, touches on several larger thematic issues \u2013 from gender and class issues to American regionalism to racism, anti-Semitism, and the Great War generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who haven\u2019t read it in a while may think this is a book about parties in the Jazz Age and rich people on Long Island,\u201d D\u2019Alleva says. \u201cNothing could be further from the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, Fitzgerald\u2019s novel also seemed to offer abundant opportunity in terms of interesting programming, given its setting, its references to the music of the era, and its numerous film and TV adaptations. \u201cAll of the other books were terrific,\u201d D\u2019Alleva says. \u201cBut the kind of excitement around programming and the many different kinds we can do [with The Great Gatsby<\/em>] \u2013 at the end of the day, that\u2019s what convinced the committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

UConn Reads event programming begins as early as tomorrow, Saturday, Oct. 13, with a UConn Reads tent at Homecoming\u2019s Spirit Village giving away UConn Reads coloring books for children as well as coupons to the UConn Co-Op for a discounted copy of The Great Gatsby<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And while Fitzgerald himself, who died in 1940, will not serve as the keynote speaker at the main UConn Reads event in the spring, D\u2019Alleva says there will be various academic panels held over the course of the academic year, with plans also in the works for a novelist to visit campus and speak about the inspiration Fitzgerald provided.<\/p>\n

Launched in 2011 by UConn President Susan Herbst, the UConn Reads program was created to bring the University community together for an annual common reading program. The inaugural book selection was Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide <\/em><\/em>(Knopf, 2009), a nonfiction bestseller by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.<\/p>\n

To give your suggestions for UConn Reads programming or for more information on starting your own UConn Reads reading group, contact UConn Reads 2012-13 Selection Committee Chair Anne D\u2019Alleva at <\/em>anne.dalleva@uconn.edu<\/em><\/a>. To follow the UConn Reads conversation on Twitter, use the hashtag\u00a0 #UConnReads.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The theme of The Great Gatsby will resonate with today’s readers just as it perfectly captures the spirit of an age gone by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":67151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[49],"class_list":["post-67113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 05:51:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67113"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67206,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67113\/revisions\/67206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/67151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67113"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=67113"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=67113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}