Irving Stone work selected for Community Read

FALLBROOK — “Men to Match My Mountains” by Irving Stone is the selection for the Community Read 2009 sponsored by Friends of the Fallbrook Library.

Stone’s historical narrative, published in 1956, is the story of the opening of the far West during the period 1840-1900 as told through the lives of the people who journeyed to this wilderness.

Stone is best known for his biographical novels based on the lives of Vincent Van Gogh (“Lust for Life”), Michelangelo (“The Agony and the Ecstasy”), Sigmund Freud (“Passions of the Mind”) and others.

Stone’s longtime friend Bill Coate, award-winning educator, author and host of a weekly television segment, “Twist in Time,” in the Fresno area will be the speaker at the Friends’ annual luncheon.

Coate has taught history for 33 years. He was named National History Teacher of the Year by the Daughters of the American Revolution and was a finalist in the California Teacher of the Year contest.

He was also recognized nationally by the Disney Company for creativity in the classroom and was given the Disney American Teacher Award.

Coate is the author of “Twist in Time: History’s Mysteries Revealed,” “History’s Shocking Secrets” and “History’s Outrageous Oddities.”