A photo that looks down the aisle of shelves in a bookstore

NEA Big Read

The National Endowment for the Arts Big Read—a partnership with Arts Midwest—broadens our understanding of ourselves and our neighbors through the power of a shared reading experience. The goals of the NEA Big Read are to inspire meaningful conversations, celebrate local creativity, elevate a wide variety of voices and perspectives, and build stronger connections in each community.

Information on the 2024-2025 NEA Big Read Grantees

Active Books

Archived Books
Bless Me Ultima book cover
Rudolfo Anaya
Bless Me, Ultima
Cover of Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451
The Best We Could Do book cover with the title and an illustration of a family from behind looking at an urban landscape in the distance
Thi Bui
The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir
My Aontonia Cover. Sunrise photo of a farm field with title and author name underneath
Willa Cather
My Ántonia
Book cover: In a cartoon drawing, the the book title as a speech ballon coming from older man sitting on a couch with his older wife and daughter. Below that the word Roz Chast: A Memoir
Roz Chast
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
The House on Mango Street book cover
Sandra Cisneros
The House on Mango Street
The Great Gatsby book cover
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby
Catalogue of Unfinished Gratitude book cover
Ross Gay
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
Homegoing book cover
Yaa Gyasi
Homegoing
Book cover: torso picture of someonewith hands clasped, lower green background with title in white and author name in yellow
Yu Hua
To Live
Their Eyes Were Watching God book cover
Zora Neale Hurston
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Lab Girl cover
Hope Jahren
Lab Girl
Book cover: Author name in blue, title in red-brown, over nicely dressed half visible african american girl
Tayari Jones
Silver Sparrow
Deaf Republic book cover
Ilya Kaminsky
Deaf Republic
The Bear book Cover
Andrew Krivak
The Bear
Book cover: yellow background with a blue and brown colored leafrising up in the middle, title in lower case blue, author name in lowercase gold
Jhumpa Lahiri
The Namesake
Hustle cover
David Tomas Martinez
Hustle
Beloved book cover: red with title in yellow script
Toni Morrison
Beloved
There, There book cover
Tommy Orange
There, There
Book cover: title and author name with testimornials on a yellow background in an old west poster style
Charles Portis
True Grit
White book cover with title and author in bold black type with a hood place in the top center. Also a seal with National Book Award Finalist
Claudia Rankine
Citizen: An American Lyric
Upper half is a black and white photo of worn wooden and metal mailboxes in a parched landscape. The bottom half is a solid yellow background with the book title and author name
Ron Rash
Burning Bright
The Grapes of Wrath book cover
John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath
Sitting Pretty book cover
Rebekah Taussig
Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body
The Cold Millions nook cover
Jess Walter
The Cold Millions
Cover of play Our Town
Thornton Wilder
Our Town
Nothing to See Here book cover
Kevin Wilson
Nothing to See Here
Book cover: author name and book title in the upper right corner against a blue background with calligraphy style clouds
Kao Kalia Yang
The Latehomecomer
Interior Chinatown book cover
Charles Yu
Interior Chinatown