FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 3/17/09

Contact:
Kristina Hoerner, Adult Services Manager
Champaign Public Library
217/403–2070 | khoerner@champaign.org

Anne Phillips, Adult Services Librarian
The Urbana Free Library
217/367–4405 | aphillips@tufl.info

In 1941, The Maltese Falcon lifted Humphrey Bogart to mainstream movie stardom, launched film noir, and created one of the most enduring cinematic icons. Less well-known today is the film’s source, a popular page-turner that was groundbreaking in its own right, setting a new standard for the detective novel and introducing Sam Spade, a complex, uniquely American hero.

That book is being brought back into the limelight as the center of The CU Big Read, a community-wide reading program starting March 28. The film will be featured, too, capping things off at the end of April with a free showing at the Virginia Theatre.

The Champaign Public Library received a $12,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to partner with The Urbana Free Library in hosting this year’s Big Read, an effort to draw people together by reading a single book. More than 200 communities, representing nearly every state, will host similar efforts this year.

The NEA offers 23 titles to pick from. In choosing The Maltese Falcon, “we just wanted to have a little fun,” said Linda Larson, the Champaign librarian coordinating this year’s effort. Last year, the first local Big Read was organized by the University of Illinois and featured a short novel by Leo Tolstoy.

Published in 1930, The Maltese Falcon is an easy read with crisp dialogue and a clean sound often compared to Hemingway’s. Author Dashiell Hammett, who also wrote The Thin Man, perfected his style writing case reports for the famed Pinkerton detective agency.

“The book is filled with colorful characters, all falling over themselves to find out who has the priceless black falcon,” Larson said. Anyone in Champaign-Urbana who has the falcon is being asked to fess up. Readers are invited to submit photos of themselves holding the falcon - the book, that is - for an “I have the falcon!” promotional campaign. Photos can be e-mailed to cufalcon@gmail.com.

Both libraries will offer free, related events including an old-time radio play, a film noir series, book discussions and scholarly talks. The kickoff weekend will feature a children’s mystery author and a chance to join in a fake murder investigation led by two professional crime scene investigators. The Friends of the Champaign Public Library will also get in the spirit with a two-for-one discount on mysteries during April in their FriendShop used book store.

For those who seek deeper meaning, the book has that, too. Anne Phillips from The Urbana Free Library noted that recent economic events have made the book an especially timely choice. “The story really questions the obsessive pursuit of material wealth,” Phillips said.

P. Gregory Springer, film critic and columnist for Smile Politely, noted how, in the film, Spade calls the falcon “the stuff that dreams are made of.” While the film script is generally quite faithful to the book, this famous phrase comes from Shakespeare, not Hammett.

“That line catapults The Maltese Falcon into the pantheon of great American movies,” Springer said. “The black statue of the bird represents the desired and the unobtainable, the larger than life.”

Springer will introduce a free showing of The Maltese Falcon, the Big Read’s grand finale, on Thursday, April 30, at 7 pm, at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign. The doors will open at 6:30 pm for general seating, and reservations will not be required. Springer will also introduce a series of film noir classics being shown at the libraries throughout April.

The Big Read is an initiative of the NEA in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services designed to revitalize the role of literature in American culture and bring the transformative power of literature into the lives of its citizens. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment.

The effort was launched in response to a decades-long nationwide decline in reading for pleasure. But this February, the NEA released new data indicating an encouraging reversal of that trend, with a growing number of adults reporting that their past year‘s reading included a novel or other literature.

Complete information about The CU Big Read 2009 is available by visiting cubigread.org or contacting the Champaign Public Library at 217/403–2070 or The Urbana Free Library at 217/367–4405.