Resolve to Read, Kitsap Regional Library’s winter reading program for adults and teens, encourages Kitsap County to enlighten their lives during the darkest months of the year by curling up with a good book.

The program kicks off Jan. 2 and will include appearances at local libraries by several published authors.

“It’s a resolution you are bound to keep,” said Library Director Jill Jean. “It’s calorie free. It doesn’t cost you anything. It’s easy to do. You can do it by yourself, or invite friends and family to do it with you. You can go to the library to do it, or you can stay home and access our digital collection over the Internet.”

Resolve to Read will highlight a different genre of literature each year. For 2013, the focus is on mysteries.

Mysteries are one of the most popular genres in publishing. According to a 2010 Forbes magazine article, typically half of the entries on the New York Times Top 10 Bestseller list for hardcover fiction are mystery titles. When all formats are considered, the number grows to eight of the top 10 selling titles.

More mystery books are sold each year than romance, science fiction or action adventure novels.

While early mystery books date back to the early 1800s, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries, introduced in 1887, are credited with sparking the huge popularity of this fiction genre. That was followed in the 1920s by a series of young adult mystery stories (Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew) which introduced the genre to younger readers. Mysteries are as popular today as they have ever been, helped along by television adaptations of popular print mystery series.

KRL has about 14,200 mystery books in its collection, which totals about 500,000 items in all.

Part of KRL’s celebration of mysteries and reading mysteries will be the appearance at 3 p.m. Feb. 5 of a noted mystery author. The chosen author and details of this event will be released closer to the date of the program.

That will be followed by “Tea and Mystery,” a program featuring a panel of mystery authors on Feb. 22 at Manchester. The “Tea and Mystery” panel will include Curt Colbert and Waverly Fitzgerald, who write as Waverly Curtis (“Dial C for Chihuahua”); Bernadette Pajer, author of the Professor Bradshaw mysteries; Bharti Kirchner (“Tulip Season: a Mitra Basu Mystery”); and Jane Isenberg (“The Bones and The Book”).

KRL will seek to engage the public in discussions about mysteries both in the branch libraries and online through our blog, “Speaking Volumes” and through our Facebook page.

“We hope to encourage our patrons and people otherwise new to the library to take this time to read,” said Jeff Brody, KRL’s Director of Community Relations. “We want to encourage them to engage with the library and other library followers about their mystery reading experiences and the joy they receive from reading.

“Readers who enjoy mysteries are always looking for new authors to feed their habit,” Brody said. “Once you finish reading one mystery series that you’ve enjoyed, you want to find other authors who write similar kinds of mysteries. The library can help identify ‘read-alikes’ for you based on your favorite series.”

KRL will ask readers to share lists of their favorite mysteries and will print and post recommended reading lists (prepared by KRL Librarians) for 10 different types of mystery story.

Digital Branch Manager Sharon Grant has chosen “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the subject of Resolve to Reads first online book discussion. The mystery can be downloaded for free by library patrons with an e-reader by following this link: http:// krl.lib.overdrive.com/ContentDetails.htm?ID=76C1B7D0-17F4-4C05-8397-C66C17411584

The book discussion for “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” will begin at 3 p.m. Jan. 30 on the KRL Facebook page.

KRL will conduct weekly sessions from noon to 2 p.m. every Tuesday on our Facebook page to discuss recommended mystery titles. Those weekly sessions will begin Jan. 8.

The library also plans to create crowd-sourced stories on our Facebook page during Resolve to Read.

Local mystery authors will write the first sentence of a mystery story. KRL will post the story starter on Facebook and encourage our Facebook fans to flesh out the story through their comments. A new story starter will be posted page each week.

Authors who are contributing story starters include Bernadette Pajer, Bharti Kirchne and Curt Colbert.