The planning committee for the annual community-wide reading program known as Linn Area Reads has selected Dreamland by Sam Quinones for the 2019 edition of the program. The committee invites everyone in Linn County to come together to share this powerful book through discussion and special programs.

Dreamland explores the world of opioid addiction and the devastating impact it has had on the American people. With a great reporter’s narrative skill and the storytelling ability of a novelist, acclaimed journalist Sam Quinones weaves together two classic tales of capitalism run amok whose unintentional collision has been catastrophic. The unfettered prescribing of pain medications during the 1990s reached its peak in Purdue Pharma’s campaign to market OxyContin, its new, expensive—and extremely addictive—miracle painkiller. Meanwhile a massive influx of black tar heroin—cheap, potent, and originating from one small county on Mexico’s west coast, independent of any drug cartel—assaulted small towns and midsized cities across the country, driven by a brilliant, almost unbeatable marketing and distribution system. Together these phenomena continue to lay waste to communities from Tennessee to Oregon, Indiana to New Mexico.

Linn Area Reads is a program of the Metro Library Network, which is made up of the Cedar Rapids, Marion, and Hiawatha Public Libraries, in partnership with Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Cole Library (Mt. Vernon), Ely Public Library, and Lisbon Public Library.