The Big Read at Kansas City Public Library

The second installment of Waldo Community Library’s participation in the Big Read project will come next month. Last night the 4th Tuesday Book Group met and discussion ricocheted around the room!

Conversation opened with the group asking why this book had been selected for Kansas City’s Big Read project. Ernest Hemingway spent the first six months of his long writing career at the Kansas City Star and returned on other occasions for the birth of his sons with second wife, Pauline. While awaiting the birth of Patrick in the summer of 1928, Hemingway put the finishing touches on A Farewell to Arms.

Another connection the book has with Kansas City is the Battle of Caporetto. The 90th anniversary of this bloody confrontation is being celebrated this month. An Italian general, Armando Diaz, who gathered the remaining Italian troops after the battle and led them to victory in a subsequent battle, was in Kansas City on November 1, 1921 for the groundbreaking ceremony of Liberty Memorial.

The group was pleased to learn of all the connections the book and its author had to Kansas City. They would like to voice their collective opinion, however, that this book is not Hemingway’s best.