The Santa Monica Citywide Reads Advisory Committee invites community input for the 2008 book selection. 

The mission of Citywide Reads is to encourage a culture of reading and to promote book-centered dialogue in Santa Monica.  Book selection criteria include the following: fiction, amenable to good group discussion, broad appeal, challenging but not exclusive, and available in a variety of formats, such as paperback and audio book. 

In 2003, Santa Monica read Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie; in 2004, The Berlin Stories, by Christopher Isherwood; in 2005, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner; and in 2006, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer.   The recent 2007 Citywide Reads selection was The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. 

To make a suggestion for Citywide Reads 2008, please complete an on-line suggestion form at www.smpl.org/cwr, visit any Santa Monica Public Library, call (310) 458-8600, or e-mail citywidereads@smgov.net.  Suggestions will be accepted until September 1, 2007.  The 2008 Citywide Reads title will be chosen and announced in the fall and the program will take place in the spring.