Mansfield Sun Chronicle (MA)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

'Three Cups of Tea' will be read across Mansfield
By Ted Nesi

MANSFIELD - The mountains of Pakistan will be the talk of Mansfield next month as the town embarks on its inaugural community read, a month-long program to be capped with a visit by best-selling author Greg Mortenson.

The project's sponsors, the Mansfield Public Library and the Mansfield Women of Today, have picked Mortenson's acclaimed memoir "Three Cups of Tea" as the first book that the town will read together, and Mortenson himself will visit Mansfield High School on Feb. 27 to talk about the book and autograph copies of it.

"Three Cups of Tea" describes how Mortenson, a former Army medic from Montana, worked to build schools in remote villages on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, a lawless area that American intelligence officials say is now a sanctuary for Islamist militants.

The book is currently No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list of nonfiction paperbacks.

"It's an uplifting story, and it's about a part of the world that's really in the news right now," said Mansfield Reads Together Co-Chairwoman Laura Humphrey, who is a member of the Women of Today.

"The Middle East is really the hot topic, and what do we do about it?"

In the book, Mortenson "doesn't give up," she said. "He sets his mind to something, and he works at it, and he doesn't let the little small things get in the way."

Those small things included getting kidnapped for eight days.

More than a dozen events, ranging from book discussions to a rock-climbing primer, will be held as part of Mansfield Reads Together, which organizers hope to make a recurring event.

"One of the reasons we did select it is because we thought there was a lot of fun programming we could do around it," Humphrey said.

The committee expects "Three Cups of Tea" will draw a broad range of people to the community read by appealing to men and women, and children as young as fifth grade. That was an important factor in picking a book for the entire town, Humphrey said.

Mansfield is the eighth town in America to pick "Three Cups of Tea" for its community read, according to the Library of Congress's Washington Center for the Book.

Mortenson will visit one of the other communities reading "Three Cups of Tea," Winchester, Mass., before he comes to Mansfield, and he will go to another one, Fairfield, Conn., the following week.

Community reads have spread across the country in the ten years since the Seattle Public Library organized the first one a decade ago. The Library of Congress lists hundreds of cities, towns and states nationwide that have had one.

Locally, Norton and Sharon have done community reads, Attleboro held the city's first community read last year, while North Attleboro is planning to start on March 1 this year.

Rhode Island also does an annual statewide read.

Humphrey first considered how successful a community read could be while she was vacationing on Martha's Vineyard last summer. She was struck by the camaraderie she saw among all the people reading the seventh "Harry Potter" book, which came out in July.

"Everybody had the book, and they would come up to each other and say, 'How are you liking it?' " she recalled.

"I'm somebody who loves to read. I love books," said Humphrey, who came back and pitched the idea for a community read to the Women of Today. "It's a great way to bring the community together, getting people to read the same book."

Mortenson's nonprofit Central Asia Institute has donated more than 100 copies of the book to the Mansfield Public Library, said Janet Campbell, the library's director. Some copies can be reserved online at sailsinc.org, but most of the copies are available at the library on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Campbell said the book can be checked out for two weeks or it can be purchased at local bookstores. It is available in large type and as an audiobook, as well.

So far, Humphrey said, Mansfield is responding positively.

"We've been getting a great response from people," she said. "Everybody I've talked to who's picked up the book has said they're enjoying reading it."

Along with the library and the Women of Today, funding for the project was provided by the Rotary Club, Borders, the library's board of trustees, and the Friends of the Library, Humphrey said.

For more information, call the library at 508-261-7380 or visit Mortenson's Web site at threecupsoftea.com.

Ted Nesi covers Mansfield for The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at tnesi@thesunchronicle.com or 508-236-0434.

http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2008/01/23/news/news9.txt