We are thrilled by the interest in this year’s One Book, One Community selected title, The Bell in the Lake by Lars Mytting, and we are looking forward to welcoming the author next Monday for an Author Visit.
We are aware that there is frustration around the lack of availability of an audiobook version and a large print version of this title for library patrons.
Area librarians have been working throughout the summer to secure the audiobook version of The Bell in the Lake for our collections. Unfortunately, due to publishing and licensing restrictions, we are unable to provide an audiobook version of The Bell in the Lake at this time.
While local libraries prefer to offer access to the selected title in the collection, the book is available for purchase in audiobook format via Libro FM and Audible and in print at local booksellers.
Libro FM:
https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9780655672326-the-bell-in-the-lake
Audible:
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Bell-in-the-Lake-Audiobook/065567232X?
For those seeking an option for larger text, the Fargo Public Library Outreach Services Dept. has bar magnifiers, dome magnifiers, and tabletop page magnifiers to check out. Please contact Pam Strait, Outreach Services Coordinator, at 701.241.8111 or at pstrait@fargolibrary.org.
This year’s title and related programs will reflect a Norwegian theme as we celebrate the bicentennial commemoration of the first organized emigration of Norwegians to the United States. Join us by reading “The Bell in The Lake” by Lars Mytting and don’t miss a visit by the author this September.
The year 2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the first organized Norwegian emigration to the United States. To mark this bicentennial and celebrate our region’s deep connection to Norway and Scandinavia, we are pleased to announce that Norwegian author Lars Mytting’s “The Bell in the Lake” has been chosen as the book for the 2025 One Book, One Community reading program. The program is organized through a collaborative partnership of the Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo public libraries, Concordia College’s Carl B. Ylvisaker Library, Minnesota State University Moorhead’s Livingston Lord Library, North Dakota State University Libraries and the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County.
Set in a remote part of Norway in 1879, Mytting’s novel, the first in a trilogy, explores the clash of past and future. When young pastor Kai Schweigaard arrives in the isolated village of Butangen, a place steeped in tradition and home to an ancient stave church with its legendary Sister Bells, he encounters Astrid Hekne, a woman longing for a more modern life. His plans to modernize the church and the arrival of a German architect ignite a conflict between Butangen’s old ways and the promise of the future. Adding to the tension is a long-lost tapestry made by twins who lived hundreds of years ago. People believed it could tell the future, predicting something terrible. Now, strange coincidences make some wonder if history is repeating itself.
Lars Mytting is one of Norway’s most beloved, in-demand and widely read authors. His trilogy based on the Sister Bells legend and the Hekne family saga (The Bell in the Lake, The Reindeer Hunters, The Night of the Scourge) has been compared to the works of Sigrid Undset in both scope and significance within modern Norwegian literary history. Mytting’s thorough research and vivid, powerful storytelling in this trilogy captures the essence of Norwegian heritage.
This year’s One Book, One Community reading program launches in September and features a variety of related events including book discussions, presentations and films. The event series includes an author visit with Mytting on September 29 at the Knutson Campus Center Centrum at Concordia College. Further details about the author visit will be announced at a later date.
Copies of the book will be available for checkout in print format at each of the participating libraries. For book club kits, contact Lori West at LWest@fargolibrary.org. For a list of related events and resources, visit any participating library’s website or visit 1book1community.org after August 1.
In its 14th year, the One Book, One Community reading program centers on the community-wide reading of a single book and is dedicated to creating a shared conversation along with a range of related events and activities for residents of all ages.
All One Book, One Community events are free and open to the public. This program is made possible in part with funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and supported by Concordia Cultural Events, Friends of the Fargo Public Library, Friends of the West Fargo Public Library and the Friends of the Moorhead Library.
Annual reading project’s related events schedule starts in September
FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA – William Kent Krueger’s book “The River We Remember” has been selected as the title for the 2024 One Book, One Community reading project. The project is organized through a collaborative partnership of the Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo public libraries, Concordia College’s Carl B. Ylvisaker Library, Minnesota State University Moorhead’s Livingston Lord Library, North Dakota State University Libraries and the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County.
Set in the summer of 1958 in a rural community in Minnesota, Krueger’s novel focuses on long-held secrets, fears and prejudices that come to light following the murder of the county’s leading citizen. “The River We Remember” is a story of how we help one another heal from the wounds of the battles we fight in life, and of how we transform hate and anger into compassion. The themes of the novel center on the damage left by the wars that are fought abroad and at home and how people can heal from those traumas.
William Kent Krueger is the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestselling novel “Ordinary Grace,” as well as its companion novel “This Tender Land.” Krueger is also the writer of nineteen Cork O’Connor novels, a series of mysteries set in the Northwoods of Minnesota. Krueger’s work has received several awards, including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Dilys Award, the Edgar Award for best novel and the Friends of American Writers Prize. His last nine novels were all New York Times bestsellers. He makes his home in St. Paul, Minnesota.
This year’s One Book, One Community reading project launches in mid-August and features a variety of events including book discussions, presentations, films and other programs. The event series includes an author visit on Oct. 29 at the Knutson Campus Center Centrum at Concordia College. Further details about the author visit will be announced at a later date.
Copies of the book will be available for checkout in several formats at each of the participating libraries. For book club kits, contact Lori West at lwest@fargolibrary.org. For a list of related events and resources, visit any participating library’s website starting July 15 or visit 1book1community.org after July 15.
In its 13th year, the One Book, One Community reading project centers on the community-wide reading of a single book and is dedicated to creating a shared conversation along with a range of related events and activities for residents of all ages.
All One Book, One Community events are free and open to the public. This project is made possible in part with funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and supported by Concordia Cultural Events, Friends of the Fargo Public Library, Friends of the West Fargo Public Library and the Friends of the Moorhead Library. Sponsorship opportunities are available; contact Hillary Stevens at stevensh@gsuite.larl.org for details.
Annual reading project’s related events schedule starts in August.
In partnership with the Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo public libraries, Concordia College’s Carl B. Ylvisaker Library, Minnesota State University Moorhead’s Livingston Lord Library, North Dakota State University Libraries and the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County, have selected Natalie Warren’s book “Hudson Bay Bound: Two Women, One Dog, Two Thousand Miles to the Arctic” as the 2023 One Book, One Community selection.
The book tells the remarkable 85-day journey of the first women to canoe the 2,000-mile route from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. Following the route made famous by Eric Sevareid in his 1935 classic “Canoeing with the Cree,” Natalie Warren and Ann Raiho faced unexpected trials, some harrowing and some simply odd. Along the way, the two friends encounter occasional pitfalls that test character and friendship. Warren’s account retraces the women’s journey from inspiration to Arctic waters, giving readers an insider view from the practicalities of planning a three-month canoe expedition to the successful accomplishment of the adventure of a lifetime. The book follows these modern women (and their dog) as they recreate this historic trip, including the pleasures and perils, the sexism, the social and environmental implications and the enduring wonder of the wilderness.
A Minnesota author, scholar and public speaker on environmental issues, Warren canoed the length of the Mississippi River and won first place in the Yukon River Quest in the women’s voyageur division, paddling 450 miles in 53 hours. A contributing writer to outdoor publications, she has worked with Bancroft Arnesen Explore, St. Croix River Association and River Management Society, and started a nonprofit to present urban rivers as natural, dynamic classrooms for youth.
This year’s One Book, One Community reading project launches in August and features a variety of events including book discussions, presentations, films and other programs. The event series includes an author visit on Oct. 19 at the Knutson Campus Center Centrum at Concordia College. Further details about the author visit will be announced at a later date.
Copies of the book will be available for checkout in several formats at each of the participating libraries. For book club kits, contact Lori West at lwest@fargolibrary.org. For a list of related events and resources, visit any participating library’s website starting July 15 or visit www.1book1community.org after July 15.
In its 12th year, the One Book, One Community reading project centers on the community-wide reading of a single book and is dedicated to creating a shared conversation along with a range of related events and activities for residents of all ages.
All One Book, One Community events are free and open to the public. This project is made possible in part with funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund (Major Sponsor), Lake Agassiz Regional Library (Major Sponsor) thanks in part to funding from the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund, and the Friends of the Fargo Public Library (Major Sponsor). Additional support provided by Concordia Cultural Events, Moorhead Community Education, Friends of the West Fargo Public Library and the Friends of the Moorhead Library.
Author Presentation
October 27 at 7 PM
The Centrum – Concordia College
In partnership, the Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo public libraries, Concordia College’s Carl B. Ylvisaker Library, Minnesota State University Moorhead’s Livingston Lord Library, North Dakota State University Libraries, Moorhead Area Public Schools Indian Education, the Indigenous Association, and the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County have selected Louise Erdrich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Night Watchman” as the 2022 One Book, One Community selection.
Set near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota in the 1950s, “The Night Watchman” includes universal themes of community, family, love and freedom. The novel is based on Erdrich’s grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C. It tells the little-known story of the U.S. government’s efforts in the 1950s to “emancipate” the Turtle Mountain band and other tribes and end federal recognition of these tribes in order to force them off their ancestral land.
A leader in contemporary Native American literature, Louise Erdrich is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. She has won numerous awards for both poetry and fiction, including the National Book Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and, twice, the National Book Critics Circle fiction award. She was a Pulitzer finalist in 2009 for “The Plague of Doves.”
This year’s One Book, One Community reading project launches in September and features several events including community book discussions, cultural presentations, exhibits, films and other programs. The event series includes an author visit Oct. 27 at the Knutson Campus Center Centrum on the campus of Concordia College. Further details about the author visit will be announced at a later date.
Copies of the book will be available for checkout in several formats at each of the participating libraries; book club kits will also available. For a list of related events and resources, visit any participating library’s website starting Aug. 15 or visit http://www.1book1community.org after Aug. 15.
In its 11th year, the One Book, One Community reading project centers on the community-wide reading of a single book and is dedicated to creating a shared conversation along with a range of related events and activities for residents of all ages.
All One Book, One Community events are free and open to the public. This project is made possible in part with funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and supported by Concordia Cultural Events, Friends of the Fargo Public Library, Friends of the West Fargo Public Library, Friends of the Moorhead Library and Moorhead Community Education.
Take on the 2022 One Book, One Community reading challenge by reading and completing activities related to the book in Beanstack, earning entries into a drawing for prizes supporting Native and Indigenous businesses.
Click on the links below to get started.
In partnership, the Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo public libraries, Concordia College’s Carl B. Ylvisaker Library, Minnesota State University Moorhead’s Livingston Lord Library, North Dakota State University Libraries, Moorhead Community Education, and the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County have selected Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer as the 2021 One Book, One Community selection.
An essential and engaging book of questions and answers for Native and non-Native readers, Treuer’s book answers questions with solid information, humor and compassion while building a foundation for true understanding and positive action. With questions ranging from “Why is there such a fuss about non-Native people wearing Indian costumes for Halloween?” to “Why is it called a ‘traditional Indian fry bread taco’?” to “What’s it like for Natives who don’t look Native?” to “Why are Indians so often imagined rather than understood?”, and beyond, the book is a thoughtful, frank, funny, and sometimes personal tour of what’s up with Indians, anyway.
A professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji (Minn.) State University, Treuer is a racial equality advocate and the acclaimed author of 20 books. His equity, education and cultural work has put him on a path of service across the region, the nation and the world.
This year’s One Book, One Community reading project launches in August and features several events including community book discussions, cultural presentations and other programs. The event series includes an author visit Oct. 26 at the Knutson Campus Center Centrum on the campus of Concordia College. Further details about the author visit will be announced at a later date.
Copies of the book will be available for checkout in several formats (physical and digital) at each of the participating libraries; book club kits will also available. For a list of related events and resources, visit any participating library’s website for in-person event policies starting August 1 or visit www.1book1community.org after July 1.
In its 10th year, the One Book, One Community reading project centers on the community-wide reading of a single book and is dedicated to creating a shared conversation along with a range of related events and activities for residents of all ages.
All One Book, One Community events are free and open to the public. This project is made possible in part with funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and supported by Concordia Cultural Events, Friends of the Fargo Public Library, Friends of the West Fargo Public Library and Friends of the Moorhead Library.
1 Book, 1 Community 