AMARILLO READS: City of Thieves by David Benioff

Hi, everyone!

We're doing a new Amarillo Reads book, City of Thieves by David Benioff. It's a really good book, and I encourage you all to read it!

As we did with Cold Sassy Tree last spring, we are hosting events at various Amarillo Public Library locations to promote the book.

If you would like to tie in your local book clubs with City of Thieves, feel free to do so. i know a great many area book groups showed up for All Over But the Shoutin' when Rick Bragg was here this past fall, and Hastings has loads of additional copies of the book if you'd like to add it to your library's collection.

Here's what's going on:

Knight Moves (chess event), was held Tuesday, April 7, 6-8:30pm @ East Branch - Chess plays an important role in City of Thieves - the climax of the book centers around a life or death game of chess. United States Chess Federation Life Master Gary Simms and USCF Expert Steve Chase, along with the Amarillo Chess Club are going to be helping us with this event. The event included a brief history of chess, a short tutorial for beginning players, a speed chess demonstration (each player has only 5 minutes total to play the entire game, so the whole thing takes a total of 10 minutes), and something called a Simultaneous Exhibition, wherein Gary Simms will take on 10-20 players at the same time, playing the people who show up at the event.

Fiction to Film: The 25th Hour, Tuesday, April 21, 6-8:30pm @ Central - City of Thieves author David Benioff is known for his screenplays as well as his books. His breakout novel, The 25th Hour was made into a movie starring Edward Norton and directed by Spike Lee. Benioff wrote the screenplay for the movie. We'll be showing the movie and discussing the book and movie (but probably mostly the movie) after the show. Popcorn and water provided.

Downtown Lunchtime Book Club: City of Thieves, Thursday, April 23 12:15-1:15pm @ North - This book club was created as part of Amarillo Reads last spring with Cold Sassy Tree, and has been a featured part of each subsequent adult book selection. In addition to discussing the book, City of Thieves, we'll be having extra refreshments for this meeting, to welcome new participants in the book discussion. People are also welcome to bring their lunch and eat during the discussion. As with all APL programs, it is free and open to the public.

An Afternoon in the City of Thieves, Sunday, April 26, 2:30-3:30pm @ Northwest - The two main characters in City of Thieves bicker over various Russian authors and poets throughout the book. Since our Winter reading festival (WRF) Celebrity Read Aloud event was such a success earlier this year, we've decided to try having another one, this time focusing on Russian literature and poetry. Instead of having a trivia game between readings as we did last time, patrons will be entertained with live Russian music provided by concert pianist Mila Abbasova and singer Robert Hansen of WTAMU. Hansen will also be doing a reading, as will Joan Urban of Amarillo College and St Petersburg native Olga England. We'll have refreshments that are Russian-themed as well. Should be fun and interesting, and shorter than the one we had for WRF, probably no more than 60-70 minutes.

David Benioff Lecture and Book Signing, Monday, May 4, 7pm-whenever @ Globe News Center for the Performing Arts - This is the big event, as author David Benioff gives a talk and then signs books for people. This is free and open to the public. We'll also have a by-invitation-only reception where people can met the author immediately prior to the lecture. Drawings for tickets to the reception will be held at each of the above events. Hastings will have books there for purchase if you don't already have copies ready for him to sign, as they did last time.

Downtown Lunchtime Book Club: Benioff Follow-Up Meeting Tuesday, May 5th, 12:15pm @ Central - This is a special meeting just to discuss the Benioff event the night before.

We've also got displays up at each of the APL locations promoting City of Thieves: Chess at East, Russian Literature at Northwest, Russian WWII History at Southwest, Wedding Cakes and Faberge Eggs at North (the main characters are given one week to find and bring back a dozen eggs in siege-starved Leningrad for a Russian officer's daughter's wedding cake in order to avoid being executed...the rest of the book is about their adventures while trying to obtain these eggs), and one about David Benioff and his works at Central. Feel free to use the display ideas at your library to help promote Benioff's upcoming visit.

Thanks for doing whatever you can to help us build up excitement for David Benioff's visit, and to encourage people to get involved in Amarillo Reads. If you need pull quotes from the book for any of the above-mentioned displays, I can be reached at Cynthia.Hunt@amarillolibrary.org, or can be called at my office at 806-378-6019.

If you have questions, just ask me!

Cynthia Hunt
Library Program Specialist
Amarillo Public Library
413 SE 4th Ave
Amarillo, TX 79101