Book Club
To grow...
Book #2: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Book #1: The Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser
Book #3: Father Joe by Tony Hendra
The Baldacchino and dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome
Book #4: The Five People You Meet in Heaven
by Mitch Albom
Book #5: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Book #6: The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen
Book #7: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
The Heavenwards Book Club
Book #8: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Book #9: The Innocent Man by John Grisham
Book #10: Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology
by Elizabeth A. Johnson
Book #11: Father Elijah: An Apocalypse by MIchael D. O’Brien
Book #12: The Gift of Peace by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin
Book #13: Jesus: A Meditation on His Stories and
His Relationships with Women by Andrew Greeley
Book #14: Godric: A Novel by Frederick Buechner
Book #15: Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the
Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculée Ilibagiza
Upcoming Meetings:
Holy Cross Parish, Dover:
July 8 @ 7:00 PM
St. Luke’s Conference Room,
Early Learning Center (Bldg. C)
St. Joseph’s Parish, Middletown:
August 23 @ 7:30 PM
Room 3
Upcoming Books:
May/June:
Book #25:
Bella: a novelization of the award-winning movie
by Lisa Samson
August:
Book #26
The Zookeeper’s Wife
by Diane Ackerman
By the way—
As you read these books, please send your impressions to:
Scroll down for book descriptions.
Book #16: Armchair Mystic: Easing Into Contemplative Prayer
by Mark E. Thibodeaux
Book #17: The Shack by William P. Young
Book #19: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Book #18: The Faith Club by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, & Priscilla Warner
Book #20: What’s So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey
Book #22: Same Kind of Different As Me
by Ron Hall & Denver Moore
Book #23: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Click at right for discussion questions:
Book #24: The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey.
Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case. As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams," where "there were no teachers.... We never had to go inside except for art class.... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue."
The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years like an episode of My So-Called Afterlife. Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family, and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on Earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow." Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish, and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings.
Book #21: The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
by Kim Edwards
"If you want God to laugh, tell him your plans."
For Jose the cook and Nina the beautiful waitress life has not turned out the way either had planned. Living with the weight of guilt and lost dreams, each struggles to survive and to make sense of what life now holds. But the events of one ordinary day in New York City turn into an unforgettable experience that changes both of their lives forever.
Based on the #1 top-rated movie of 2007 and one of the most honored films of the year--winning the highly coveted People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival, Best Picture and Best Actor at the 2008 MovieGuide Awards--Bella is a story about redemption, family and finding love unexpectedly.
Book #25: Bella: a novelization of the award-winning movie
by Lisa Samson
Book #26: The Zookeeper’s Wife
by Diane Ackerman
Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses) tells the remarkable WWII story of Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina, who, with courage and coolheaded ingenuity, sheltered 300 Jews as well as Polish resisters in their villa and in animal cages and sheds. Using Antonina's diaries, other contemporary sources and her own research in Poland, Ackerman takes us into the Warsaw ghetto and the 1943 Jewish uprising and also describes the Poles' revolt against the Nazi occupiers in 1944. She introduces us to such varied figures as Lutz Heck, the duplicitous head of the Berlin zoo; Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, spiritual head of the ghetto; and the leaders of Zegota, the Polish organization that rescued Jews. Ackerman reveals other rescuers, like Dr. Mada Walter, who helped many Jews pass, giving lessons on how to appear Aryan and not attract notice. Ackerman's writing is viscerally evocative, as in her description of the effects of the German bombing of the zoo area: ...the sky broke open and whistling fire hurtled down, cages exploded, moats rained upward, iron bars squealed as they wrenched apart. This suspenseful beautifully crafted story deserves a wide readership.
