“Together We Read” — Western North Carolina’s “One Book, One Community” program — has chosen Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders as its topic volume for 2004.

First published in 1913, with an expanded edition in 1922, the book is currently available via a reissue published by the University of Tennessee Press in 1976.

In 2002 and 2003, respectively, more than 20,000 readers participated in TWR, sharing their reading experiences of Wilma Dykeman’s The French Broad” and Fred Chappell’s Brighten the Corner Where You Are.

TWR’s mission is to develop in the region a love of reading through the shared experience of well-chosen books. The program is funded by Glad Tithings Foundation, Asheville-Buncombe Library System, Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, Mountain Area Information Network, Western Carolina University, and dozens of sites at which books and programs are provided. It is governed by a board of educators, librarians, readers, and business leaders.

Ask your local library, bookstore, or school about programs in your area. The official kick-off is in September, but book discussions, speaker and performer events, hikes, seminars, writing programs, and other activities run from now through December.

To organize your own program, visit www.main.nc.us/twr/ or call 768-BOOK (2665) for more information.