DavidsonReads is back, inviting residents to share the experience of a community read. Past selections in the townwide reading program have been “The Bridge” by Doug Marlette and “One Foot in Eden,” by Ron Rash. This year, the committee is asking local readers to help choose the book from a trio of titles nominated by residents.

The winning title will be announced at Town Day on Saturday, May 2. That will give readers a chance to finish the book over the summer and then attend DavidsonReads events this fall.

In January, residents submitted suggestions ranging from “Romeo and Juliet” to “Zorro.” The committee reviewed more than 40 selections and selected three books for another round of voting.

Voting will take place online at www.ci.davidson.nc.us (look for it on the left side of the main page), at Main Street Books, the Davidson Public Library, Town Hall, and the Parks & Recreation office on Armour Street.

DavidsonReads is a town-wide program to get everyone reading and talking about the same book. It is a partnership between the Town of Davidson Parks & Recreation Department, the Davidson Public Library, Main Street Books and town residents. The program asks people to read the same book at the same time and attend various events to discuss the characters, plots and themes.

ABOUT THE CHOICES

Here’s more about the books under consideration. (Descriptions provided by the DavidsonReads committee, from Publisher’s Weekly and the Library Journal).

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“Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert grafts the structure of romantic fiction upon the inquiries of reporting in this sprawling yet methodical travelogue of soul-searching and self-discovery. Plagued with despair after a nasty divorce, the author, in her early 30s, divides a year equally among three dissimilar countries, exploring her competing urges for earthly delights and divine transcendence. First, pleasure: savoring Italy’s buffet of delights–the world’s best pizza, free-flowing wine and dashing conversation partners–Gilbert consumes la dolce vita as spiritual succor. “I came to Italy pinched and thin,” she writes, but soon fills out in waist and soul. Then, prayer and ascetic rigor: seeking communion with the divine at a sacred ashram in India, Gilbert emulates the ways of yogis in grueling hours of meditation, struggling to still her churning mind. Finally, a balancing act in Bali, where Gilbert tries for equipoise “betwixt and between” realms, studies with a merry medicine man and plunges into a charged love affair. Sustaining a chatty, conspiratorial tone, Gilbert fully engages readers in the year’s cultural and emotional tapestry–conveying rapture with infectious brio, recalling anguish with touching candor–as she details her exotic tableau with history, anecdote and impression.

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“The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho is an inspirational fable by Brazilian author and translator. Coelho has been a runaway bestseller throughout Latin America and seems poised to achieve the same prominence here. The charming tale of Santiago, a shepherd boy, who dreams of seeing the world, is compelling in its own right, but gains resonance through the many lessons Santiago learns during his adventures. He journeys from Spain to Morocco in search of worldly success, and eventually to Egypt, where a fateful encounter with an alchemist brings him at last to self-understanding and spiritual enlightenment. The story has the comic charm, dramatic tension and psychological intensity of a fairy tale, but it’s full of specific wisdom as well, about becoming self-empowered, overcoming depression, and believing in dreams. The cumulative effect is like hearing a wonderful bedtime story from an inspirational psychiatrist. Comparisons to The Little Prince are appropriate; this is a sweetly exotic tale for young and old alike.

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“The Color of Water” by James McBride. An eloquent narrative in which a young black man searches for his roots – against the wishes of his mother. McBride, a professional saxophonist and former staff writer for the Boston Globe and the Washington Post, grew up with 11 siblings in an all-black Brooklyn, New York, housing project. As a child, he became aware that his mother was different from others around him: She was white, and she kept secrets. When asked where she was from, McBride recalls, she would say something like “God made me”; when asked about her ethnicity, she would say,” ‘I’m light-skinned,’ and change the subject.” No amount of prodding could get her to say much more, and McBride was left to explore his mother’s past without much help from his principal subject. What he learned occupies the pages of this vivid, affecting memoir: When James McBride asked his mother, Ruth, what color God was, she told him He was ‘the color of water’. Growing up black in Brooklyn, James wondered at his mother’s light skin, and only later learned she had been born Ruchel Zylska, an Orthodox Jew. After her family fled from Poland during the war to settle in Virginia, she escaped her abusive father to live in Harlem, where she married a black man. She changed her name, founded a Baptist church with her husband and put 12 high-flying children through college. This double autobiography tells the story of Ruth and her son, each reflecting the experience of the other as they grow up in a world where racial categories threaten to overcome personal identities.