Get Ready to Read and Join Us for Discussion
Our book group will be reading an exciting variety of fiction and non-fiction in 2023. Join us for any or all of these discussions. We will have our meetings at UUCM after church on second Sundays at 12:30, in the Channing Room. The exception will be April, when we will meet April 2, to avoid Easter.. You are welcome to bring a snack or lunch to these meetings. We will have enhanced Zoom availability for our Sunday meetings
Below are our selection through October of 2023. We think you will be excited as we are. Read and join us.
January 8, 2023 West With Giraffes, Lynda Rutledge, 2021, 300 pages. This delightful novel is a road trip like no other set during Depression-era America. It is based on a true story of two giraffes who are transported across America to the San Diego Zoo. Presenter Ruth Edwards
February 12, 2023 How To Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan, 2019, 464 pages. In this book, Michael Pollan writes about his own consciousness expanding experiments with LSD and psilocybin. He makes a case for why shaking up the brains old habits could be therapeutic for people facing addiction, depression and death. Presenter Jo Waters
March 12, 2023 A Map of Salt and Stars, Zein Joukhadar, 2018, 368 pages. The ancient , sometimes mystical connection between maps, people and knowledge is central to this first novel by Zoukhadar. It is a double tale of voyage and exile that moves between contemporary war-torn Syria and the caravansaries and khans of the past. Maps are mentioned on almost every page: not just making them but the decisions that making them involves, what lands they cover, and what lands they leave out. Presenter Susan Merrill
April 2, 2023 Klara and The Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021, 341 pages. In this novel, the author looks at our rapidly changing world though the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, an Artificial Friend, Klara, to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love? Presenter Theresa Houtman
May 14, 2023 The Invisible Child, Andrea Elliott, 2021, 520 pages. New York Times journalist Andrea Elliott immerses herself in the life of a New York family suffering from poverty, homelessness, drug addiction and despair. The invisible child is Dasani,, a talented girl who wins a scholarship to an elite school in Pennsylvania , which presents a fundamental conflict between her ambitions and her loyalty to her family. This book won a Pulitzer. Presenter Keith Johnson
June, 11, 2023 The Swimmers, Julie Osuka, 2022, 192 pages. An intensely touching novel-part memoir highlighted the relationship between the author and her mother. The author sensitively weaves the progression of her mother’s dementia into the storyline as well as an insightful and humorous story about the community pool members. The repetitive language structure enhances this endearing book. Presenter Judith Gropp
July 9, 2023 The Song of the Cell, Sidhartha Mukherjee, 2022, 496 pages. In this highly reviewed book, Mukherjee , a Pulitzer Prize winner, tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them and are now using them to create new humans. He seduces you with writing so vivid, lucid and suspenseful that complex science becomes thrilling. Presenter Joel Houtman
August 13, 2023 The Grimkes, The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family, 2022 404 pages. Sarah and Angelina Grimke were born and raised on a South Carolina plantation. Renouncing their family and heritage, they moved north and became prominent abolitionist in antebellum America. Author Kerri Greenidge presents a parallel narrative of the family, shifting focus from the sisters to the black members of the Grimke family which deepens our understanding of the family and the struggle for racial equality. Presenter Keith Johnson
September 10, 2023 Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, 2022, 560 pages. Set in the mountains of Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. This novel borrows its narrative structure from Charles Dickens’ novel about David Copperfield. It was named one of the “Ten Best Books of 2022” by Washington Post and the New York Times. Presenter Mary Pickett
October 8, 2023 The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles, 2021, 592 pages. Towles’ Great American Road Novel tails three 18 year-olds, who met in juvenile reformatory and a brainy 8 year-old—as they set out from Nebraska in June of 1954, in an old Studebaker in pursuit of a better future. Hitch into this delightful tour de force and you’ll be pulled straight through to the end, helpless against the inventive exuberance of Towles’ storytelling.. Presenter Susan Merrill