B “One City One Book” is a generic name ( 通称 ) for a community reading program that attempts to get everyone in a city to read and discuss the same book.Popular book picks have been Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird , Ernest Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying , and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. “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 at Seattle Public Library’s Washington Center for the Book.The book chosen for the program was The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks , 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 , and that 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 puts out a detailed step­by­step guide on how to organize a local program , including the critical step of picking the one book.The Center for the Book at the Library of Congress tracks all known programs and the books they have used. 【 语篇解读 】 本文是说明文,介绍了美国开展的 “ 一个城市,一本书 ” 的读书活动。