For the third consecutive year, Ephrata will receive a Big Read grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to bring the community together to read and discuss a work of literature.

With the U.S. in the midst of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this year's featured book is Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," about the Vietnam War.

The book is described as "merging memoir and fiction in interrelated stories. O'Brien examines the war from a variety of perspectives to make sense of his platoon's experience. A narrator named 'Tim O'Brien' recounts the plight of an isolated unit as they dodge sniper fire and their own misgivings, all while lugging memories of home through the jungles. O'Brien then undercuts the stories by claiming they never happened -- challenging the book's powerful sense of autobiographical authority. O'Brien's unique storytelling style gets at the truth of war by mapping the emotional landscape of a battlefield without a front. The resulting book is brutal, sometimes funny, and always profound."

• Programming related to the book is scheduled for Sept. 13-Oct. 14.

Keynote speaker will be the first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, who was drafted into the U.S. Army and served as an infantry staff sergeant in Vietnam, earning the Bronze Star for Valor, the Combat Infantry Badge and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. Ridge is also the author of "The Test of Our Times: America Under Seige -- and How We can Be Safe Again."

Other speakers include a cultural historian, an Army surgeon and a conscientious objector who taught English in Vietnam.

In addition, there will be book discussions, screenings of documentaries and feature films about the war, and interviews of citizens for an oral history project about the era, along with a session to craft greeting cards for soldiers.

"We're challenged every year, because they don't want to see the same old thing," according to Community Relations Manager Penny Talbert, of the Ephrata Public Library, the lead organization for the community reading project, which in the two previous years featured Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and Tobias Wolff's "Old School."

Anyone who knows Talbert knows "same old thing" is not how Talbert thinks, and Ephrata may experience it's first book-related "flash mob," if she and a group of Ephrata High School students have their way. The library has partnered with the Ephrata Area School District and more than a dozen other community organizations in conducting the Big Read.

The NEA awarded Ephrata $17,050, she said, "and we've received monies from other entities in the community to bring our total up to about $25,000 for the project."

Contributors and partners include the local library friends, veterans groups, Wal-Mart, the Chamber of Commerce, the borough, Blue Ridge Communications, The Ephrata Review and Ephrata Performing Arts Center.

Ephrata's is one of 75 Big Read projects being funded nationwide this year. Since the 2006 pilot program with 10 participating organizations, the NEA has awarded more than 800 Big Read grants.

• Here is a list of additional Big Read events:

•  Launch at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 13: Tom Ridge's presentation at Ephrata Business Center, 400 W. Main St. Tickets are free and can be ordered at thebigreadephrata.org website or picked up at the library starting Aug. 1.

All the other free events will be held at the Ephrata Public Library, 550 S. Reading Road, and do not require tickets.

• 6:30 p.m.Tuesday, Sept. 14: Titus Peachey, director of peace education for Mennonite Central Committee U.S., presents "Reaching for Peace: The Story of a Conscientious Objector in Vietnam."

• 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 15: book discussion.

• 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 18: screening of the feature film "Good Morning Vietnam."

• 6 p.m. Monday, Sept. 20: screening of the documentary "The Camden 28," about a raid on a draft board office by war protesters.

• 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 21, book discussion (with Vietnam veterans panel).

• 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 23: Rutgers University professor and author Dr. H. Bruce Franklin presents "The Antiwar Movement We're Not Supposed to Know About."

• 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 25: screening of the feature film "Forrest Gump."

• 6 p.m. Monday, Sept. 27: retired Lt. Gen. Ronald R. Blanck, D.O., an Ephrata native, presents "A Battalion Surgeon Remembers."

• 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 28: book discussion.

• 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 29: screening of the documentary "The Betrayal," about the abandonment of Laotians who had fought alongside American forces during the war.

• 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 2: screening of the feature film "Coming Home."

• 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 4: screening of the documentary "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers," about the man who leaked top-secret documents to The New York Times leading to the war's end, as well as President Richard Nixon's resignation.

• Noon Tuesday, Oct. 5: book discussion.

• 5-8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 5: drop-in craft session to make cards for soldiers.

The Big Read Ephrata Oral History Project will be conducted throughout September and October by Ephrata resident Phil Eisemann, who will interview Vietnam veterans, conscientious objectors and women waiting on the home front whose experiences may have been similar to those in O'Brien's book.

The interviews are being archived at the Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley and will also be available on the website, thebigreadephrata.org, where there is much additional information about Ephrata's latest Big Read.