Read Across Lawrence: A Common Book for Uncommon Times

How to Connect with The Anthropocene Reviewed

“Everything is interesting if you pay the right amount of attention to it.” —John Green

Once a year, Lawrence comes together as a community to read the same book and explore its major themes, offering discussions and interactive programs to deepen the experience. This year’s Read Across Lawrence, opens a new window (RAL) program will kick off on Kansas Day, Thursday, January 29. The Anthropocene Reviewed: Kansas Edition! will be the first event of the month-long series with an emphasis on community connection, love of place, music, cupcakes, and free copies of the 2026 RAL book, The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. 

Read Across Lawrence has been hosted by LPL in various iterations since 2005, but due to missing some years (thanks, Pandemic) this is actually our 19th Read Across Lawrence. For a few of the years, we’ve partnered with KU and used the same common book — like this year. In other years, we had children’s and teens’ books as well. And one year we even had all ages read the same book. To accommodate different reasons and different seasons, RAL has moved around the calendar a few times, too. 

Every year, in whatever format, our goals have been the same: creating community around a single shared book, coming together to engage the material, and having experiences that lead to a more expansive human experience. John Green, in his visit to Lawrence on September 2, 2025, gave Common Book programs five stars for these very reasons.

Curing The Terrible Disease of Loneliness

During the pandemic, Green started The Anthropocene Reviewed as something to keep his connection to the world, to his experiences with those human-centered places and things that were stripped away to keep us safe. Or safer. He was looking for a way to stay present. What resulted was a series of essays that ignite curiosity, inspire hope, and could serve to unite the communities, if read in community. Like Green, I’m a big believer in common read programs, and I’m proud of the years we’ve put in! 

In my (almost) 14 years at LPL, many of those years directly participating in some way to bring RAL to the community, there have been highlights. One was convincing the committee that The Martian would be a great choice. We had some really diverse and fun programming, the book was pretty universally enjoyed, and that year we saw an increase in what we would call, scientifically, “dudes coming to programs”. It was gratifying. 

Thus far, my Most Excellent experience has been asking Keanu Reeves to take a selfie with Dracula, our last Read Across Lawrence book… and succeeding! What a guy. We had an incredible kick-off event that year, with the creator of Dracula Daily, Matt Kirkland, giving a stellar presentation, and so many of our events stand out to me that year as full-on fun. 

Have I had any lowlights, you might ask? Well, yes. Any library programmer will tell you, there are events that just don’t go as hard as you wished, or books that don’t seem to inspire the way you hoped as you discussed it in committee. But I’ll stick with the old standby and say, looking fondly into the distance, “Oh, I love all my children equally.”

This year, I’m most excited about sharing the themes of Green’s book because I think they are more crucial than ever. Pay attention to what you pay attention to. Fall in love with life. Build community where you are. Stay hopeful. He quotes Kurt Vonnegut in the book, “What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” And this is what I (not so secretly) hope will be our greatest takeaway this year. 

I hope you find some favorite essays that you share with people you love and people you like and people you’ve just met. (Auld Lang Syne, Indianapolis, and Bonneville Salt Flats are three of my favorites overall.) If this is your first or 15th Read Across Lawrence, I hope to meet you at an event or get an email from you telling me your favorite essays or programs. I hope you contribute to our Five Star Reads wall and recommend some great reads to your neighbors. If you got a free book, I hope you share it with others, and if you didn’t I hope you come check one out from us — we’ll have plenty!

But what I hope the most is that you participate however you can, because we need each other more than ever. During his talk, Green summed up his core beliefs thusly : “One, is that it’s hard to be a person in a world full of other people. Two, is that it's worth it.” 

I think it’s not only worth it, it’s essential.

—Polli Kenn is the Readers' Services Coordinator at Lawrence Public Library.