July Meeting

Discussion

Amy:

I read Gilead a few months ago and liked it. (Have I mentioned about two years ago I joined a Book Club with a few local friends, as I missed our Blue Stocking discussions of yesteryear? Now I'm rather committed to it. So, I'll try to keep up with as many books as I can. We read Gilead. Only two of us liked it, and I was one of those. It took a bit to get into it (I listened to it on audio CD) but I thought the quotes were thought-provoking. Here are three of my favorites:

"These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you’re making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice." (It just makes me chuckle.)
"It seems almost a cruelty for one generation to beget another when parents can secure so little for their children, so little safety, even in the best circumstances. Great faith is required to give the child up, trusting God to honor the parents’ love for him by assuring that there will indeed be angels in that wilderness."
"One of my least favorite things to do is to talk about spiritual things with an atheist."
(This one is a paraphrase. I wish I could remember this whole quote -- don't currently have the book on me -- but I really relate to this feeling and, again, kind of chuckle when I think of it.

Happy reading!

Becca:
I purchased Gilead and began it, but have not had the time to finish it. I liked what I read so far, though, and plan to read it when I break from school in August.

I'm still in! My school work usually takes precedence these days, but I love to read your comments and ideas.

The third book in the Hunger Games Trilogy will be out soon. If nothing else, that may reunite us! I think we all read the previous two.

When my brain has room in it, I listen to books while driving to and from school. I just finished one I really enjoyed: The Book Thief. Most of you have probably already read it, but if not, I recommend it (not for our next read, of course, just as a book to read "sometime"). I found the imagery painfully beautiful at times and the juxtaposition of charity and cruelty throughout the story is something that I'll remember for a lifetime.

Elisabeth:

I really enjoyed Gilead. I liked the style of the book, letters being written to a son to read when he is grown. I think my own children might benefit from this! Maybe they would judge me more compassionately if I left them my side of the story! I thought the themes of forgiveness and charity that ran through the book were uplifting. It was very slow moving, but beautifully written. I was very touched by page 124 in the book. If you don't get to reading the book, at least read page 124. It was my very favorite.

This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but that is the perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it.

p.s. I am really enjoying the book club and would love to continue

Ann:

I liked that quote Elisabeth...I have kind of thought of that before but am still trying to put it into practice. I didn't finish the book and was disappointed that I didn't even get very far, girls camp is to blame. I am going to request Two Old Women from the library right now and enjoy my post camp summer. Who's choosing next? And does anyone remember the name of that book we read many years ago about the black plague in a little English village? I wanted to pass that suggestion along to my sis in law.