A collection of poems about finding solace in nature and gardening is the selection for this year’s Big Read Wichita.
The Wichita Public Library has chosen "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude" by Ross Gay as its 2026 community read.
Gay is a poet, educator and community gardener and the author of several poetry and essay collections.
Published in 2015, “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” is a meditation on the wisdom of gardens and orchards, and an exploration of how death and sorrow are “converted into what might, with patience, nourish us.” It was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.
In its review, the Poetry Foundation said reading the book “feels like the first time you open a window in spring. That first chilly air. The sun on the sill.”
Unlike previous years, this year’s Big Read Wichita did not receive a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Instead, funding will come through the Wichita Library Foundation and the Friends of the Wichita Public Library.
That means fewer books to give away — though library officials still expect there to be plenty at a kickoff event March 29.
And the library will not be able to bring Gay to Wichita for an in-person keynote address. Instead, the come-and-go kickoff at the Maya Angelou branch in northeast Wichita will feature several local poets and a panel discussion.
The 2026 Big Read will take place throughout April, which is also National Poetry Month. A full schedule of book-related events will be posted on the Wichita Library’s website in coming months.
Big Reads through the years
This year’s Big Read — "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude" by Ross Gay — marks the 18th year for Wichita’s common-read program.
Here is a look at previous selections:
2025: “Sitting Pretty: The View From My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body” by Rebekah Taussig
2024: “There There” by Tommy Orange
2023: “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” by Roz Chast
2022: “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros
2021: “Circe” by Madeline Miller
2019: “Lab Girl” by Hope Jahren
2018: “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel
2017: “The Latehomecomer” by Kao Kalia Yang
2016: “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury
2015: “Into the Beautiful North” by Luis Alberto Urrea
2014: “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammett
2013: “True Grit” by Charles Portis
2012: “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2011: “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
2010: “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston
2009: “Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe” by Edgar Allan Poe
2008: “My Antonia” by Willa Cather
