Check out the Raleigh Public Record’s new book review section Record Reads!
Ender’s Game captured my imagination in high school. As a nerdtacular kid, I related to the brilliant children attempting to navigate and influence the world around them—and I admired that Ender never took any crap. As a student in Raleigh, I thought it was pretty awesome that parts of the novel took place in North Carolina. And then in college I learned that Orson Scott Card lives in Greensboro, and my heart grew three sizes. The story was suddenly more tangible and the author more human.
Being able to relate to and understand literature is an extraordinary thing. Well-told stories give us the ability to explore places, attend events and meet people that can greatly influence us. They are powerful tools in understanding and relating to the world around us. Rather than truly knowing 20 people in our lives, we have access to thousands. And great literature has layers upon layers of meaning, littered with historical and social context.
North Carolina has a rich and illustrious place in literature—from To Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe to The Hunger Games being filmed in the Dupont State Forest. Our goal at Record Reads to is to explore and report on this tradition. Record Reads will be populated with short, insightful reviews about upcoming novels, video interviews with authors and selections of books to read during epic travels in NC. Check out our North Carolina in Literature Time Line to see some of the famous novels, poetry and short stories written in and about the Tar Heel state.
Tonight we are launching Record Reads with the Oak City Bard Brawl at King’s Barcade. Six North Carolina storytellers will compete for the plumed hat of Sir Walter Raleigh and books donated by Quail Ridge Books & Music as a panel of expert judges sip bourbon and make witticisms on their performances. It will be a wonderful, cultural time.
Record Reads will publish every Tuesday, so check back weekly for more sweet local lit knowledge.
/mic drop
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