Nevada Center for the Book

The Nevada Center for the Book is a program of Nevada Humanities dedicated to promoting literature and literacy throughout the Silver State. The Nevada Center for the Book is the state affiliate of the Center for the Book, housed at the Library of Congress. Nevada Center for the Book programs include Nevada Reads, the Las Vegas Book Festival, the Nevada Humanities Literary Crawl, the National Book Festival, and additional literary programs.

Books Representing Nevada at the 2024 National Book Festival

Two books have been selected by Nevada Humanities, home of the Nevada Center for the Book, to represent the state at the annual National Book Festival that will be held in Washington, DC on August 24, 2024. Every year Great Reads from Great Places, a list of books representing the literary heritage of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and Northern Marianas, is distributed by the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book during the National Book Festival. This year’s Great Reads from Nevada call attention to the importance of keeping dark skies in our state protected and visible, and the myriad ways that food, community, and our shared humanity are interconnected: The Moon's Tear: A Desert Night's Dream by Sophie Sheppard, and The Meth Lunches: Food and Longing in an American City by Kim Foster.

ABOUT THE BOOKS

The Moon's Tear: A Desert Night's Dream by Sophie Sheppard (Youth Title)

A third-generation painter, Sophie Sheppard lives and works in the remote northwest corner of the Great Basin where the distances are vast and the silences are deep. Her paintings and writing are place-based in this land where she, her husband, Lynn Nardella, and three generations of their family practice regenerative agriculture and put carbon back in the soil where it belongs. This story is based on a dream she had while sleeping under clear desert night skies.

The Meth Lunches: Food and Longing in an American City by Kim Foster (Adult Title)

Kim Foster is a James Beard Award-winning writer and author of The Meth Lunches: Food and Longing in an American City. Foster writes about people enmeshed in mental illness, family separation, poverty, addiction, trauma, and incarceration. Foster has written for or been written about in publications like The Washington Post, Slate, The Guardian, and others. You can read her work on her weekly newsletter, kimfoster.substack.com and find her on social media as @KimintheWest. She is originally from New York City but has fallen in love with the West. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with her husband and producer, David, their four kids, and many animals.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR THE BOOK IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The Library’s Center for the Book, established by Congress in 1977 to stimulate public interest in books and reading, is a national force for reading and literacy promotion. A public-private partnership, it sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading-promotion partners, and through its Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit www.read.gov. The National Book Festival Roadmap to Reading is made possible by the generous support of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Humanities with additional support from Chief Officers of State Library Agencies.