For this year’s community-wide reading program, Wayland Reads, the committee selected “The Opposite of Loneliness,” a collection of short stories and essays written by Marina Keegan and published posthumously. Keegan was a Wayland native who died five days after she graduated from Yale University, and her book has since received critical acclaim.

Throughout the month of March, Wayland Reads will be hosting events to discuss the book and some of Keegan’s other works at the high school, public library and other locations. To finish the month long celebration, there will be a reading of Keegan’s play “Utility Monster,” led by drama teacher Richard Weingartner at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 27.

“I was at the Sunday kickoff event in the lecture hall [at WHS], and it was pretty well attended, mostly by older people,” WHS librarian and Wayland Reads committee member Joanne Schmidt said. “The community seems to be embracing the book and the messages of the book.”

The complete list of Wayland Reads event can be found here, and you can read the book’s title essay, “The Opposite of Loneliness” on the Yale Daily News.