Red Deerians will have to wait until April 8 to find out which five books made it to the short list for the third annual Red Deer Reads campaign.
They will have until May 26 to vote for their favourite. The winner will be announced in mid-summer.
A total of 65 books were nominated by the public for the city-wide book club.
“This year we did better getting mostly Canadian titles. We had a good assortment of selections,” said Briana Ehnes, adult services manager at downtown branch.
She said nominations included everything — fiction, non-fiction, best sellers, books written by local authors and classics. The selection committee did a lot of work to whittle down the list to five, but they will include something for every type of reader.
Hopefully that variety will give people an extra bit of encouragement to read something outside their usual genre or authors before they vote, she said.
Ehnes said Red Deer Reads is also about giving people an opportunity to be part of a community conversation and meet other residents.
“The program strives to encourage all Red Deerians to become readers and just have that shared conversation with each other about books. That’s one of the things I love most about it.”
The five books on the short list will be announced at the City of Red Deer’s Let’s Talk event at Parkland Mall.
People will be able to cast their vote for their favourite book at all Red Deer Public Library branches and Red Deer College Library, or online at www.rdpl.org.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com