One City One Book is a generic name for a community reading program that attempts to get everyone in a city to read and discuss the same book. The name of the program is often reversed to One Book One City, or is customized to name the city where it occurs. Popular book picks have been Harper Lee

Harper Lee

Nelle Harper Lee is an American author known for her 1960 Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which deals with the issues of racism that were observed by the author as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama...

's To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was instantly successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature...

, Ernest Gaines

Ernest Gaines

Ernest James Gaines is an African-American author. His works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese. Four of his works have been made into television movies.His 1993 novel, A Lesson Before Dying, won the...

's A Lesson Before Dying

A Lesson Before Dying

A Lesson Before Dying is Ernest J. Gaines' eighth novel, published in 1993.-Point of view:The reader is given a unique outlook on the status of African Americans in the South, after World War II and before the Civil Rights Movement...

, and Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury

Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...

's Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...

.

History

One City One Book programs take the idea of a localized book discussion club and expand it to cover a whole city.
The first such program was "If All of Seattle Read the Same Book" in 1998, started by Nancy Pearl

Nancy Pearl

Nancy Pearl is an American librarian, best-selling author, literary critic and was, until August 2004, the Executive Director of the Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library...

 at Seattle Public Library

Seattle Public Library

The Seattle Public Library is the public library system serving Seattle, Washington, USA. It was officially established by the city in 1890, though there had been efforts to start a Seattle library as early as 1868. There are 26 branches in the system, most of them named after the neighborhoods in...

's Washington Center for the Book.
The book chosen for the program was 'The Sweet Hereafter' by Russell Banks

Russell Banks

Russell Banks is an American writer of fiction and poetry.- Biography :Russell Banks was born in Newton, Massachusetts on March 28, 1940. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in upstate New York, and has been named a New York State Author. He is also...

, written in 1991. Other cities copied the idea, and the Library of Congress listed 404 programs occurring in 2007.
Each city's program has its own goals; these typically include building a sense of community and promoting literacy.
Nancy Pearl warns against expecting too much from a program: "Keep in mind that this is a library program, it's not an exercise in civics, it's not intended to have literature cure the racial divide. This is about a work of literature."

Programs typically involve more than having everyone read the same book. Some other activities that have been included are: book discussion sessions, scholarly lectures on the book or related topics, a visit by the author, exhibits, related arts programming (especially showing a movie of the book if there is one), and integration into school curricula.
In Boston the "One City One Story" program used shorter stories and distributed tens of thousands of free copies of the story over the course of a month.

American Library Association

American Library Association

The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....

 puts out a detailed step-by-step guide on how to organize a local program, including the critical step of picking the one book. The Center for the Book

Center for the Book

The Center for the Book was founded in 1977 by Daniel J. Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, in order to use the Library of Congress to promote literacy, libraries, and reading in general, as well as an understanding of the history and heritage of American literature...

 at the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 tracks all known programs and the books they have used.

Significant "One Book" programs

Most listed are in the United States, perhaps because the meme started there and similar programs elsewhere have a different name.

Programs sponsored by public libraries are tracked each year by the Library of Congress. Most programs maintain their own websites devoted to the annual effort.

USA

The Library of Congress maintains a website with resources for cities that want to run One Book programs, including a partial list of authors and list of past programs. Some states and the ALA

American Library Association

The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....

 maintain their own resources to help cities get started.

National

• The National Endowment for the Arts
  National Endowment for the Arts
  The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
  
   has run a "Big Read" program since 2006, and gives grants to hundreds of communities each year to run reading programs based on a small set of books chosen for that year. Unlike single-city programs, the Big Read centrally chooses a list of a few books, and each city selects from that list.

By State:

Since	City	State	Sponsoring library or org	Program name
2005	Yuma Yuma, Arizona Yuma is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of the state, and the population of the city was 77,515 at the 2000 census, with a 2008 Census Bureau estimated population of 90,041....	Arizona Arizona Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...	Yuma libraries	One Book Yuma
2003	Santa Monica	California California California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...	Santa Monica Public Library Santa Monica Public Library The Santa Monica Public Library serves residents of Santa Monica, California and surrounding areas. SMPL is directed by a City Librarian, who reports to the Santa Monica City Manager's Office and is overseen by a Library Board consisting of five members appointed by the Santa Monica City...	Santa Monica Reads
2002		Connecticut Connecticut Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...	Eastern Connecticut Libraries	One Book One Region
2003	Gwinnett County	Georgia Georgia (U.S. state) Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...	Gwinnett County Libraries	Gwinnett Reads
2004	Winnetka-Northfield	Illinois Illinois Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...	Winnetka-Northfield libraries	One Book, Two Villages - separate selection for children and adults
2004	South Bend	Indiania	Indiana University South Bend Indiana University South Bend Indiana University South Bend is the third largest campus of the Indiana University system. It is popularly known as IUSB or IU South Bend. It is located in South Bend, Indiana, in St. Joseph County, Indiana.-History:...	One Book One Campus
2003		Iowa Iowa Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...	Iowa Center for the Book	All Iowa Reads
2006		Kentucky Kentucky The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...	Northern Kentucky	One Book One Community
2008		Maryland Maryland Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...	Maryland Humanities Council	One Maryland One Book
2004	Brookline	Massachusetts Massachusetts The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...	Public Library of Brookline	Brookline Reads
2002	Falmouth	Massachusetts Massachusetts The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...	Falmouth Public Library	What's Falmouth Reading
2010	Boston Boston Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...	Massachusetts Massachusetts The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...	Boston Book Festival Boston book festival The Boston Book Festival is an independent non-profit group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the name of its main event. The non-profit was founded in 2009 by Deborah Z...	One City One Story - distributes 30,000 free copies to area residents
2004	Cambridge Cambridge The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...	Massachusetts Massachusetts The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...	Cambridge Public Library Cambridge Public Library The Cambridge Public Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts is part of the Minuteman Library Network. The library includes a headquarters and several branch buildings throughout the city....	Cambridge READS
2002	East Lansing	Michigan Michigan Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....	City of East Lansing	One Book East Lansing
2004	Rochester	Minnesota Minnesota Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...		Rochester Reads
2002	Boone	Missouri Missouri Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...	Daniel Boone Regional Library	One Read
	Bozeman	Montana Montana Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...		One Book One Bozeman
	Omaha	Nebraska Nebraska Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....	Millard Public Schools Foundation	One Disney One Book
2005	New Paltz	New York New York New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...		One Book One New Paltz
2003	Western New York	New York New York New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...		A Tale for Three Counties
2006	Schenectady	New York New York New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...	Schenectady County Public Library	"One County One Book"
2001	Syracuse, Onondaga County	New York New York New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...	Onondaga County Public Library	Central New York Reads One Book
2002	Cincinnati	Ohio Ohio Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...		On the Same Page Cincinnati
2003	Findlay	Ohio Ohio Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...	Findlay-Hancock Community Foundation	CommunityREAD
2007	Lake Oswego	Oregon Oregon Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...	Lake Oswego Library	Lake Oswego Reads
2003	Multonmah County	Oregon Oregon Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...	Multnomah County Library	Everybody Reads
2003	Centre County	Pennsylvania Pennsylvania The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...		Centre County Reads
2003	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania Pennsylvania The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...	Free Library of Philadelphia Free Library of Philadelphia The Free Library of Philadelphia is the public library system serving Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-History:History of the Free Library of Philadelphia: Initiated by the efforts of Dr...	One Book One Philadelphia
2002	Lancaster County	Pennsylvania Pennsylvania The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...		One Book One Community
2004	Mansfield	Texas Texas Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...		One City One Book
2002	Austin	Texas Texas Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...	City of Austin	Mayor's Book Club
2004	Logan	Utah Utah Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...	Utah State University Utah State University Utah State University is a public university located in Logan, Utah. It is a land-grant and space-grant institution and is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities....	Common Literature Experience
2003		Vermont	Vermont Humanities Council	Vermont Reads
2004	Lodoun County	Virginia Virginia The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...		1 Book, 1 Community
2011	Red Bank	New Jersey New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...		One Book One Community: Honk! The Musical Tale of the Ugly Duckling

Alternate programs

Some cities that have run independent One Book programs have later joined Big Read instead. An annual "One World, Many Stories" summer reading campaign for children, which has a single selection for the country, has become popular as well.

Critical responses

For some, the mere idea of reading as a communal activity is repellent. The literary critic Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...

 said, "I don't like these mass reading bees.... It is rather like the idea that we are all going to pop out and eat Chicken McNuggets or something else horrid at once."
Others are concerned about the temptation to use such a program to promote social values. Phillip Lopate

Phillip Lopate

Doctor Phillip Lopate is an American film critic, essayist, fiction writer, poet, and teacher. He is the younger brother of radio host Leonard Lopate.-Early life and education:...

 fears a promotion of groupthink, saying "It is a little like a science fiction plot -- 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' or something."
In New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 2002 the effort foundered when the selectors split into two rival groups, each with its own favorite: Chang-Rae Lee

Chang-Rae Lee

Chang-rae Lee is a Korean American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Princeton University, where he has served as the director of Princeton's Program in Creative Writing.-Early life:...

's Native Speaker

Native Speaker

Native Speaker is Chang-Rae Lee’s first novel. In Native Speaker, he creates a man named Henry Park who tries to assimilate into American society and become a “native speaker.”-Plot summary:...

 and James McBride

James McBride (writer)

James McBride is an American writer and musician whose compositions have been recorded by a variety of other musicians.-Early life:McBride's father, the late Rev. Andrew D...

's The Color of Water

The Color of Water

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother is the autobiography of James McBride; it is also a tribute to his mother. The chapters alternate between James McBride's descriptions of his early life and first-person accounts of his mother Ruth's life, mostly taking place before her...

. Both books were considered to be offensive to some of New York's ethnic groups.
Nancy Pearl said,
"It's turned into something not to do with literature but to do with curing the ills in society, and while there is a role for that, to ask a book to fit everybody's agenda in talking about particular issues just does a disservice to literature."
Governments are sometimes concerned that their endorsement of reading a book will be viewed as endorsing the ideas or language of the book. In Texas in 2006, the Galveston County Reads committee recommended Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon is an English novelist and poet, best known for his 2003 novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.- Life and work :...

's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a 2003 novel by British writer Mark Haddon. It won the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year and the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book...

 as the choice for their county-wide read. There was much criticism of the choice from the Mayor and Council of Friendswood, who objected to obscenity in the novel, and said that it contained ideas that should not be promoted to kids and that taxpayer money should not be used to promote and purchase a book the community wouldn't approve of.