Diversify Your Reading Challenge 2022 Results

Here's a re-cap of the titles I chose for the Diversify Your Reading Challenge 2022. I must admit that the effort did result in me examining the contents of the BDC in ways I probably would not have had to do in the course of my daily work. And that can be a very good exercise for someone who has worked for so long in one collection. At times, the selection process took longer than anticipated but I have a greater appreciation for the scope of materials inside the Research Room. I hope that you do as well as a result of following along last year.  

January - The BDC has a number of memoirs from which to choose. Olivia wrote about one in her "My Favorite Things" post a few weeks ago.  

February - Establishing a "love connection" in the BDC was hard - and I had to do it again in October with a slightly different category. In the end I had to go "off books" and choose a different format inside the Research Room, i.e. a poster, the Last Romance poster to be precise. I selected a poster announcing the performance of the Last Romance play by a local theater company that was performed in 2019. BTW: Our local poster collection numbers almost 300 as of this writing.

The BDC is a little light on the ground when it comes to "Fantasy" and "Mystery" too. I featured my choices for March and April on the BDC's Facebook page. You can see what I wrote in the FB Re-Caps: 

 

March - Ballad of Witches Hill: Fiends Invade Frogmore by Jeanne Gosselin Arnold, illustrated by Monica Miller  [Look for the March 13 entry in the blogpost] and April  - Deceit, Disappearance and Death on Hilton Head Island by Charlie Ryan with Pamela Ovens [Look for the April 10 entry in the blogpost.] 

May -  Rehearsal for Reconstruction by Willie Lee Rose was a slam-dunk for the "History" category. What Professor Rose did with her book was ground-shifting and enduring -  which is outstanding given that the book was published in 1964, remains in print, and still holds the field today as the best book written thus far about the course of Reconstruction in Beaufort District, SC. [On a personal note, in my pantheon of history writers who inspired me to study history at a deeper lever were Willie Lee Rose, Barbara Tuchman and Bruce Catton. Did you notice that 2 of the 3 were women? That meant a lot to a young girl in the 1970s.] 

June - The BDC had only 3 selections: Dead Low Water by Roger Pinckney; Lowcountry Boil by Carl Smith; and Ten Days in Brazzaville by Scott Graber that qualified under the "Thriller" category. Given the circumstances, I highlighted each one.

July - There's not a lot of "Contemporary Fiction" in the Research Room. But short stories can be contemporary and most of the entries in the Short Story America series do happen to be contemporary in nature. It also didn't hurt that the editor Tom Johnston and the Short Story Press is located in Beaufort. 

August - My selection for the "Young Adult" category was another no-brainer.  Mr. & Mrs. Bo Jo Jones by Ann Head was the obvious and most appropriate selection.  BTW: This book was on many a school's reading lists for more than a half century. Now that is no small feat - and for a native Beaufort District author, no less! 

September - I couldn't choose just one book for "Literary Fiction" because how can a person pick just one of the Literary Fiction Works of Pat Conroy to highlight. After all, Mr. Conroy wrote a lot of words - and most of those were written in a literary fiction style.  

October -  As mentioned above, love is hard to find in the Research Room. For the category, "Historical Romance" I choose Beaufort 1849 by Karen Lynn Allen. 

November - The "Non-Fiction" category was a shoo-in: The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, 1514-2006 by Larry Rowland, Steve Wise and others (3 vols.) I could not do my job nearly as well as I manage to do without these volumes to guide me into right paths for documentation and further investigation. 

December - Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill One of my career regrets is that I had to pass on the BDC sponsoring author Lawrence Hill's visit to the Library system after this book came out. Beaufort Branch got the honors of hosting him. [The BDC doesn't "do" novels, remember?]  

I hope that you have - or will - read one or more of the recommendations. And of course, you can always set up an appointment to come visit the Research Room to see these and other items in the special collections and archives room of the Beaufort County Library: bdc@bcgov.net; 843-255-6468.

JSYK: I am not participating in any reading challenges in 2023. 2023 is the year of the finalizing the BDC's digital collections and getting as many finding aids written and posted as possible before my watch as the Beaufort District Collection's steward ends.