The Carson City Library invites everyone to participate in a community read of “Roughing It” by Mark Twain for the Capital City Reads program during the month of April. Capital City Reads is Carson City Library’s annual city-wide book club sponsored by the Friends of the Carson City Library that brings people together through reading and discussion. The program starts in early April, the library will hold some copies back so that festival goers can come by the library to get their free copy.
Roughing It is semi-non-fiction travel literature about Mark Twain’s six-years “out west” from 1861-1867 in his late 20s and early 30s. In 1861, young Mark Twain found himself adrift as a newcomer in the Wild West, working as a civil servant, silver prospector, mill worker, and finally a reporter and traveling lecturer. Roughing It is the hilarious record of those early years traveling from Nevada to California to Hawaii, as Twain tried his luck at anything and everything—and usually failed. Twain’s encounters with tarantulas and donkeys, vigilantes and volcanoes, even Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, come to life with his inimitable mixture of reporting, social satire, and rollicking tall tales.
