Museum of Glass Big Read Program: Bewilderment by Richard Powers
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read broadens our understanding of ourselves and our neighbors through the power of a shared reading experience. The goals of the NEA Big Read are to inspire meaningful conversations, celebrate local creativity, elevate a wide variety of voices and perspectives, and build stronger connections in each community. Participating organizations choose a book from the 24 titles available in the NEA Big Read Library. Museum of Glass is one recipient of a NEA Big Read grant, and choose the novel Bewilderment by Richard Powers.
This novel’s environmental themes align directly with the Museum’s current exhibition Field Notes: Artists Observe Nature, which explores the intersection of glass art and the natural world. Named after the practice of recording observations in nature, Field Notes connects with the character Robin’s personal field notes in Bewilderment, which serve as both a narrative device for the character’s arc as he changes with his Decoded Neuro Feedback treatments and a tool for his desire to raise environmental awareness.
The themes of Bewilderment — ecological fragility, intergenerational anxiety, and the human relationship to the natural world — resonate deeply with works featured in the exhibition, including Alexis Rockman’s Evolution, a painting that juxtaposes natural history presented through the presence of various species in an anachronistic designed space paired with modern environmental degradation. These programs will create an interdisciplinary platform where literature, visual art, history, and conservation can be explored by a broad public audience. See below for the Museum’s free public programs centered around Bewilderment.
Sequential Community Reading of Bewilderment
In conjunction with the Big Read program, Museum of Glass, along with community partners, will host community readings of Bewilderment by Richard Powers. These readings will be presented by professional actors and followed by a facilitated Q&A. These events are free and open to the public. No preregistration is required but please check in at the front desk of each hosting organization and let them know you are there for Big Reads programming. See below for each reading date and location.
Additionally, attendees will be provided with a Big Read “passport” at the first reading. Attendees who join all of the community readings will be granted a Museum of Glass membership for one year! Please be sure to get your passport stamped at each event.
April 11, 2026 | 4-6pm | Museum of Glass
Section 1, pages 1-44
April 18, 2026 | 4-6pm | Location TBD
Section 2, pages 45-92
April 25, 2026 | 4-6pm | University of Puget Sound
Section 3, pages 93-135
May 2, 2026 | 4-6pm | TBD
Section 4, pages 137-178
May 9, 2026 | 4-6pm | Tacoma Public Library (Main Branch)
Section 5, pages 179-225
May 23, 2026 | 4-6pm | TBD
Section 6, pages 226-278
More Bewilderment Programming
Climate Change Spoken Word Event
University of Puget Sound - Date TBD
Event Overview: Spoken word performance as part of the Museum of Glass’s NEA Big Read grant programming, inspired by Bewilderment by Richard Powers.
This needs to be fleshed out. Need date and need description of event. Registration? Tickets?
Tacoma Public Library Events
Join Tacoma Public Library and Museum of Glass for a series of climate change themed programs and talks in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts Big Read Program featuring Bewilderment. More information at tacomalibrary.org.
Spring Awakenings | February 18, 2026 - Fern Hill Branch
The Science of Rain Gardens | February 21, 2026 - Swasey Branch
Local Birds, Habitats, and Conservation | February 25, 2026 - South Tacoma Branch
Resilient Gardening: Climate Friendly Veggie Gardening | March 28, 2026 - Moore Branch
Birds & Beaks: How Birds Fill the Bill | March 28, 2026 - Wheelock Branch
Native Birds and Plants for Spring | April 10, 2026 - Fern Hill Branch
Preparing Your Home for Extreme Weather | April 29, 2026 - South Tacoma Branch
About Bewilderment
AN OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB SELECTION
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize
Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction
Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
Description:
The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain…
With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?
About Richard Powers
Richard Powers is a multi-award-winning American author. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.
His fiction often explores the effects of science and technology on humanity, and he has been nominated for the Booker Prize four times, most recently for his novel Playground in 2024. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award in 2006. The Overstory, which was shortlisted for the Booker in 2018, also won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, among other honours. Powers has previously said he is partially indebted to Booker-winner Margaret Atwood for his 2021-shortlisted novel Bewilderment, which explores the anxiety of family life on a damaged planet.
Powers’s other works include Prisoner's Dilemma (1988), The Gold Bug Variations (stories, 1991), Operation Wandering Soul (1993), Galatea 2.2 (1995), Gain (1998), Plowing the Dark (2000), The Time of Our Singing (2003), The Echo Maker (2006), Generosity (2009), and Orfeo (2014).
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