This community-based project extends the building blocks of science literacy to two new adult audiences: rural librarians and adults in the communities that they serve.

It utilizes the best aspects of science cafes, public book clubs, and video presentations; participants read a work of popular fiction, and then attend an evening that uses two thematic videos to spur lively discussion.

Produced in partnership with Dartmouth College, the Association of Rural and Small Libraries, Oregon State University and Califa, and funded by the National Science Foundation, the series rolls out in September 2012.

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Jean Auel is the author of the best-selling Earth’s Children series (most recently, Land of the Painted Caves). Auel’s long time love has been the intersection of  the Neanderthal and Cro-magnon during the Paleolithic era. Her works build from more than 30 years of consultation with experts around the world, visits to numerous sites, and her own research. In her speculative world, genetic memory and experimental knowledge are compared as the question of which of the branches on the human tree will survive.

Sean Brock is a successful chef who has two Charleston, SC restaurants and two James Beard awards to his credit. But he’s not satisfied. His restaurants are a means to pursue his ambition of revitalizing the culinary knowledge of the golden age of Southern Cuisine by reviving heirloom crops, recovering rare livestock and applying his knowledge of molecular gastronomy to his recipes.

KNOWLEDGE: Jean Auel and Sean Brock

T.C. Boyle is the author of numerous highly acclaimed books including his 2011 work, When the Killing’s Done. Boyle’s fiction is often focused on complex questions where culture, ethics and science intersect. This most recent work fictionalizes a conflict between the National Park Service’s efforts to destroy invasive species and radical animal rights activists trying to save an island’s non-native population of black rats.

Cameron Clapp is an adrenaline junkie and risk taker who is trying to meld his nature to more useful pursuits. He is also a triple amputee, with on prosthetic arm and two prosthetic legs. Losing his limbs in a train accident as a teenager, Cameron hasn’t ever let his injuries stand in the way of his dreams of competing in a triathalon - a feat not easily undertaken when he can’t feel the pedals strapped to his shoes.

NATURE: T.C. Boyle and Cameron Clapp

Erik Larson (Devil in the White City) combines painstaking research into technology history with compelling characterizations and murderous twists. His novel, Thunderstruck, fictionalizes Guglielmo Marconi’s struggle to generate enough electricity for a reliable tran-Atlantic transmission, which parallels the based on true-life search for on of Britain’s most notorious serial killers. Marconi’s technology eventually allows listeners on both sides of the pond to listen in as Scotland Yard tracks and captures the villain.

Roxanne Swentzell is a Native American sculptor and contemporary pueblo artist with a gallery located near Santa Fe New Mexico. She began sculpting as a child, as a means of overcoming a speech impediment. Her sculptures center on female portraits and gendered balances in power, representing an art form that is rooted in her own culture and experiences, while speaking to people of all backgrounds.

POWER: Erik Larson and Roxanne Swentzell

Clive Cussler’s fans know his character Dirk Pitt as a sea-going engineer-adventurer, but not all of them know that Cussler is a marine archeologist. Cussler’s works often find his hero in extreme conditions — stranded on an arctic ice flow, adrift on a raft, or even trapped in a sunken wreck. The author’s loving attention to the scientific detail of cutting edge marine technologies woven seamlessly into speculative fiction, keeps readers transfixed through to the triumphant end.

Husband and wife Cory and Julie Shrum, work hard and play hard. Farming is in their blood, but believe it or not, so are combine demolition derbies. Growing up as multigenerational cattle, wheat, and alfalfa farmers, this newlywed couple also engineers, decorates and competes with their combines. Only the strong survive.

SURVIVAL: Clive Cussler and Julie & Cory Shrum