Vinton’s Big Read is a Community-Wide Celebration of the Arts and Humanities

Sponsored in part by the Charles and Helen Yundt Charitable Foundation and the Vinton Community Foundation

The mission of Vinton’s Big Read is to strengthen connections within our community. We encourage adults to participate by reading our selected book and attending programs highlighting themes in the book!

Pick up your free copy of ‘The Things They Carried’ at the library, (while supplies last) and register by clicking HERE!

For more details about the various activities involved in this year's events, click HERE!

October Events

October 6, 2026, 7pm Live Music featuring Todd Frank and Phil Thomas, Vinton Palace Theatre

October 7, 2026, 7pm Film Showing of ‘Forrest Gump, ’ Vinton Palace Theatre

October 8, 2026, 6pm Benton County Conservation presents ‘All About Bison’ program, Vinton Public Library

October 10, 2026, 9:15am Community Book Club discussion of ‘The Things They Carried’ by Tim O’Brien, Vinton Public Library

October 15, 2026, 9am-6pm Carnegie Libraries Bus Tour including the State Library of Iowa, departure from the Vinton Public Library, preregistration required

October 27, 2026, 6:30pm Painted Patriotic Community Collage, Vinton Guild of Fine Arts Studio, preregistration required

November Events

November 11, 2026, 7pm Grout Museum of Iowa presents ‘Voices of Iowa: Pearl Harbor, ’ Vinton Palace Theatre

November 19, 2026, 6pm Benton County Conservation presents ‘Iowa Bald Eagles’ program, 6pm, Vinton Public Library

November 21, 2026, 10am Frontier Foraging program, Benton County Nature Center

December Events

December 8, 2026, 7pm Lecture with Alex Vasquez, 7pm, Vinton Palace Theatre

December 9, 2026, 7pm Film Showing of ‘Midway, ’ Vinton Palace Theatre

About the Book

“O'Brien has written a vital, important book--a book that matters not only to the reader interested in Vietnam, but to anyone interested in the craft of writing as well."

-Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene,

‘The Things They Carried’ is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.

‘The Things They Carried’ depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O'Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

Taught everywhere--from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing--it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge eaders in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing.

‘The Things They Carried’ won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

~Publisher Marketing



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