Each year, the Southern Cayuga Community Read brings neighbors and friends together to discuss a book that has local relevance while exploring timeless themes related to justice, freedom, and equity. This year, we will be reading Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
The 2025 Community Read will consist of small discussion groups. We will be breaking up into small groups of participants and one moderator (either in-person or via Zoom) to share, reflect, and discuss the book and how it relates to themes we see or feel in our own community.
Free copies of the book are available at the Aurora Free Library and the Hazard Library.
Email Elaine Meyers for info on attending the discussions.
About the book
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.
