Nevada Humanities Announces Book Selections for 2020 Nevada Reads Program

Nevada Humanities has announced the book selections for its statewide 2020 Nevada Reads program. Nevada Reads is a statewide book club that invites Nevadans to read selected works of literature and then come together in their communities to share ideas and perceptions inspired by the books they have read.

Nevada Reads offers avenues for discussion of topics of importance to the people of Nevada. Throughout 2020, Nevada Reads will feature two books—one nonfiction book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder, and one novel, Severance by Ling Ma.

Programming around the selected books will take place throughout the state in 2020, including readings, book clubs, discussion groups, and community partnership initiatives. Program details with be announced throughout the year. Readers’ guides for the books and support for reading groups and independent book clubs are available at nevadahumanities.org.

Nomadland is the true story about an emerging group of itinerant workers, who in most cases, have fallen out of the middle class and are traveling across the country in RVs and motorhomes, working low-paying temporary jobs. Calling themselves "houseless" instead of "homeless," Nomadland is a story of American resilience, as well as an indictment on a broken economic system and its disappearing social safety net. Severance also investigates capitalism and transience, but via the lens of a zombie apocalypse, offering a satirical look at worker alienation among a younger generation.

“We are excited to delve into the stories told in Nomadland and Severance—two books that seem unique, but which both tell a story of social breakdown, human struggle, and resilience,” said Christina Barr, executive director of Nevada Humanities. “At Nevada Humanities, we believe that stories help illuminate our shared experience, and we are so pleased to be launching this year’s Nevada Reads program with this goal in mind.”

Nevada Reads is a program of Nevada Humanities and is made possible with support from Nevada State Library, Archives, and Public Records; the Institute of Museum and Library Services; and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Those interested in reading the 2020 Nevada Reads books and participating in the scheduled programming are encouraged to request the books at their public library or purchase them now. Book descriptions and information about their respective authors follows.

Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder. W. W. Norton & Company

For her book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, Bruder spent months living in a camper van, documenting itinerant Americans who gave up traditional housing and hit the road full time, enabling them to travel from job to job and carve out a place for themselves in a precarious economy. The project spanned three years and more than 15,000 miles of driving—from coast to coast and from Mexico to the Canadian border. Named a New York Times Notable Book and Editors’ Choice, Nomadland won the 2017 Discover Award and was a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and the Helen Bernstein Book Award.

Jessica Bruder has been teaching narrative storytelling at Columbia Journalism School and contributing to The New York Times for more than a decade. She has also written for New York Magazine, WIRED, Harper's Magazine, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, The International Herald Tribune, The New York Times Magazine, and The Guardian. She is the author of Burning Book and is currently writing about trust in the age of surveillance. She lives in Brooklyn with a dog named Max and more plants than you can shake a leafy stick at.

Severance by Ling Ma. Picador

Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. So much so, that she barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, Candance photographs the eerie, abandoned city as an anonymous blogger. A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive. Severance won the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. It was a New York Times Notable Book of 2018.
Ling Ma was born in Sanming, China, and she grew up in Utah, Nebraska, and Kansas. She attended the University of Chicago and received an MFA from Cornell University. Prior to graduate school, she worked as a journalist and an editor. Her writing has appeared in Granta, VICE, Playboy, Chicago Reader, Ninth Letter, and other publications. A chapter of Severance received the 2015 Graywolf SLS Prize. She lives in Chicago.

About Nevada Humanities, Nevada Reads, and Nevada Center for the Book:
Nevada Humanities is one of 56 independent, nonprofit state and territorial humanities councils affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities. With offices in Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada Humanities creates public programs and supports public projects statewide that define the Nevada experience and facilitate the exploration of issues that matter to the people of Nevada and their communities. For more information about Nevada Humanities visit nevadahumanities.org.

Nevada Reads and Nevada Center for the Book are programs of Nevada Humanities that are made possible with support from Nevada State Library, Archives, and Public Records; the Institute of Museum and Library Services; and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Library of Congress’ Center for the Book promotes books and libraries, literacy and reading, and poetry and literature.

To learn more about Nevada Humanities, Nevada Reads, and Nevada Center for the Book, visit nevadahumanities.org. Download the Nevada Reads media kit at: nevadahumanities.org/press-room.