Public Information and Communication
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 29, 2018
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Tessa Terry
402-471-3434
800-307-2665
This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm
Chosen as 2019 One Book One Nebraska
People across Nebraska are encouraged to read the work of a
fourth-generation Nebraskan —and then talk about it with their friends and
neighbors. This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family
Farm (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017) by Ted Genoways is the joint 2019
One Book One Nebraska and All Iowa Reads selection.
This Blessed Earth asks the question, is there still a place for
the farm in today’s America? The family farm lies at the heart of our
national identity, yet its future is in peril. Far from an isolated refuge
beyond the reach of global events, the family farm is increasingly at the
crossroads of emerging technologies and international detente. Ted Genoways
explores this rapidly changing landscape of small, traditional farming
operations, mapping as it unfolds day to day.
For forty years, Rick Hammond has raised cattle and crops on his wife’s
fifth-generation farm. But as he prepares to hand off the operation to his
daughter Meghan and her husband Kyle, their entire way of life is under
siege. Confronted by rising corporate ownership, encroaching pipelines,
groundwater depletion, climate change, and shifting trade policies, small
farmers are often caught in the middle and fighting just to preserve their
way of life. Following the Hammonds from harvest to harvest, This
Blessed Earth is both a history of American agriculture and a portrait
of one family’s struggle to hold on to their legacy.
Libraries across Nebraska will join other literary and cultural
organizations in planning book discussions, activities, and events that will
encourage Nebraskans to read and discuss this book. Support materials to
assist with local reading/discussion activities will be available after
January 1, 2019 at
http://onebook.nebraska.gov.
Updates and activity listings will be posted on the One Book One Nebraska
Facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/onebookonenebraska.
2019 will mark the fifteenth year of the One Book One Nebraska reading
program, sponsored by the Nebraska Center for the Book. It encourages
Nebraskans across the state to read and discuss one book, chosen from books
written by Nebraska authors or that have a Nebraska theme or setting.
One Book One Nebraska is sponsored by Nebraska Center for the Book,
Humanities Nebraska, and Nebraska Library Commission. The Nebraska Center
for the Book brings together the state’s readers, writers, booksellers,
librarians, publishers, printers, educators, and scholars to build the
community of the book, supporting programs to celebrate and stimulate public
interest in books, reading, and the written word. The Nebraska Center for
the Book is housed at and supported by the Nebraska Library Commission.
As the state library agency, the Nebraska Library
Commission is an advocate for the library and information needs of all
Nebraskans. The mission of the Library Commission is statewide promotion,
development, and coordination of library and information services, “bringing
together people and information.”###
The most up-to-date news releases from the Nebraska Library
Commission are always available on the Library Commission
website,
http://nlc.nebraska.gov/publications/newsreleases.