Staten Island OUtLOUD is proud to present F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby for The Big Read, from September 2015 through Spring 2016.  Our series will feature book discussions, readings, music, film screenings and other special events celebrating what has been called the quintessential 20th century American novel.

Prof. Matthew J. Bruccoli, one of Fitzgerald’s biographers, said, “The dominant influences on F. Scott Fitzgerald were aspiration, literature, Princeton, Zelda Sayre and alcohol.”   Born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1896, he died in Hollywood in 1940.  His four completed novels, published during his lifetime, were This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night.  A fifth novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, though incomplete at the time of his death, was published posthumously.  His novellas include “A Diamond as Big as the Ritz” and “May Day”.  Fitzgerald wrote scores of short stories and essays.  His letters have been published in multiple editions.

Here are just a few of the many resources available on the life and work of F. Scott Fitzgerald; your branch library can help you find more excellent books and some worthwhile online resources to explore: The Cambridge Edition of the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald is a multi-volume collection of his complete works; The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald, by Ruth Prigozy, is a one-volume compendium of FItzgerald resources.  Among the many Fitzgerald biographies:  Some Sort of Epic Grandeur by Matthew Bruccoli and Scottie Fitzgerald Smith; Invented Lives: F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald  by James R. Mellow; The Far Side of Paradise, by Arthur Mizener; Scott Fitzgerald by Andrew Turnbull;  After the Good Gay Times: Ashville Summer of ’35 and A Season with F. Scott Fitzgerald by Tony Buttitta;  Living Well is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tompkins; Zelda: A Biography by Nancy Mitford,

The Big Read has published an online Teachers Guide, Readers Guide and Audio Guide to The Great Gatsby:  http://www.neabigread.org/books/greatgatsby/.  The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society hosts international conferences on Fitzgerald’s life and work; the society regularly publishes articles and provides links to Fitzgerald resources on its website,   www.fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org.

The Big Read, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, chose Staten Island OutLOUD to present The Great Gatsby; we are proud to have been selected for the fifth consecutive year to participate in The Big Read.  The Big Read is a national initiative to revitalize the role of literary reading in American culture.  It brings communities together to read, discuss and celebrate compelling books from world literature.  It inspires people around the country to pick up a good book and read for pleasure and enlightenment.

The National Endowment for the Arts proudly presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and in cooperation with Arts Midwest.