Sigma Tau Delta 4th Annual Common Reader Event

The Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society Club at the American University of Kuwait (AUK) won its fourth consecutive Regent's Common Reader Award for its reading event held on campus earlier this month.

This year's event focused on the book Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman. The theme of the event was an Arabian picnic style where readers lounged on the grassy area by the Library to read while enjoying snacks and refreshments. Approximately 100 faculty, staff, and students joined the event to enjoy the reading activity.

Every year, the honor society at AUK strives to create a reading for pleasure activity within a traditional Arabian atmosphere. Last year, the club staged a mock poetry competition based on Natasha Trethway's book of poetry titled Bellocq's Ophelia. In 2011, readers engaged in literary translation surrounding the book Black Ice by Lorene Carey. A recording was made of the reading and presented to Carey at the 2011 Honor Society convention in Pittsburgh. In 2010, participants read Chris Abani's Song for Night while gathering under an Arabian tent.

In conferring this year's Regent's Common Reader award on the AUK chapter, Sigma Tau Delta Eastern Regent Dr. Glen Brewster, recognized the group as one of the "most creative and involved chapters."

The Common Reader is an event held annually by Sigma Tau Delta. The organization asks all of the members of its nearly 900 chapters to read a specific book each year and then stage an on-campus event that promotes reading.

Over the years the Common Reader has included a number of genres - poetry, fiction, memoirs, and essays. All have proved to be popular with the AUK readers.

Released by the Office of Public Affairs on the 21st March 2013

Photography by the Office of Public Affairs (C) 2013