Long Island Reads Author Enthralls Crowd with Discussion of “The River of Doubt”

Maureen Garvey, assistant director of the Merrick Library and also the Nassau County co-chair for Long Island Reads, helped introduce the author for this year's "One Island, One Book" selection to an audience Tuesday morning at the Plainview-Old Bethpage Public Library.

The "One Island, One Book" program is in its ninth year, Garvey said.

"The book has to have a Long Island connection in order to be considered," she said.  "This year's selection was due to the Teddy Roosevelt connection."

 The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey

This year's selection, by Candice Millard, takes a close look at just one year in Roosevelt's life, a year where Roosevelt explored a 600-mile long river in the Amazon known only as the River of Doubt.

Millard is a former writer and editor for National Geographic magazine and "The River of Doubt" was named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Christian Science Monitor. It also won the Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers award.

Millard, who grew up in Ohio and now lives in Kansas City, was asked what she thought of Long Island.

"People here are wonderful," she said. "It's such a great honor to have been chosen and I'm just thrilled to talk to everybody."

But Millard won't have much time to sightsee on the island.  

"I'll be speaking at the Riverhead Library this afternoon," she said, "but then have to get right back home where I have three small children waiting for me."

In the audience of more than 120 people, Pamela Lieber, of Merrick, seemed particularly excited about the program.

"I've been doing book discussions for 25 years and now do them for the Hicksville Library. For Long Island Reads, there is a selection process with a lot of background activities," Lieber said.  "A few weeks ago, we had a group of librarians doing a practice discussion in order to get comfortable with the book. A lot of ideas came from this."

Millard spoke for about a half hour to a rapt audience, sharing her experiences when researching the book. At one point while in a single-engine plane flying over the Amazon, she recalled the engine cutting out.

"My heart stopped," she said while the audience gasped, "but then the pilot was able to start it back up."  Later, when speaking about the end product, she said, "At heart, it's a story about strength and survival." 

Once Millard concluded her talk, she called on those whose hands immediately shot up to answer their questions. One audience member wanted to know how long it took for the author to write the book.

"It took three years to research and write the book," Millard said. "The more I read about him, the more I wanted to know."

Another audience member asked what the author's next book going to be about.

Millard replied: "President Garfield. He was absolutely extraordinary, off-the-charts brilliant."