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Join us each month for a lively discussion of our featured book at the Annex on Kennedy Street at 10:30 a.m. for the morning group and 7:00 p.m. for the evening group. Even if you haven't read the book of the month, you are welcome to come.
| 2009 - 2010 Book Selections |
Wednesday, July 1 - God Stories - C. Michael Curtis, editor
 (Michael Curtis will be present for the 10:30 a.m. discussion)
This month’s book – GOD STORIES – offers the group an opportunity to discuss a great compilation of short stories collected by the well known editor C. Michael Curtis, a distinguished member of the faculty of Wofford College and fiction editor of The Atlantic magazine. GOD STORIES includes a diversity of stories by such writers as John Hersey, James Baldwin, Flannery O’Conner, Alice Munro, Andre Dubus, John Updike, Philip Roth, and a host of others.
Mike and his wife Betsy will join the morning group for discussion at 10:30 a.m. Bill Arthur will lead the evening group at 7:00 p.m. All interested persons - readers and non-readers – FPC members and non-members - are welcome. The discussions run the gamut of topics as literature invites us to see and reflect upon issues of our lives. Contact Bill Arthur for more information (864-991-5354 / barthur@fpcspartanburg.org).
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Tuesday, September 15 - The Shack - by William P. Young
 Widely popular and evoking interesting responses from readers, The Shack raises a number of issues about the ways God is conceived and is at work in our lives. It’s the story about Mack whose daughter is kidnapped and brutally murdered. A few years later Mack receives an invitation from God to meet Him at the shack. Mack goes and works through the meaning of suffering as he spends the weekend with the Trinity. Many have read it and have suggested that they would enjoy “going at it” in a discussion at our BBC.
 A companion work is Finding God in the Shack by Dr. Roger Olson, professor of theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University. He views The Shack with a theologian’s eye as he seeks “truth in a story of evil and redemption” by delving into many issues raised by The Shack such as forgiving those who have done us great evil, how God acts in the world, how God is three persons in one, and what difference all of this makes to us. Readers will find Olsen’s reflections helpful
in interpreting with The Shack.
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Monday, October 20 - Loving Frank - by Nancy Horan
 Here’s a runaway best-seller, a popular bit of historical fiction that recounts the love affair between the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the wife of one of his prominent clients. This book comes highly recommended as a favorite among book clubs across the country.
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Monday, November 2- The Shoes of the Fisherman - by Morris West.
 This classic, written some 40 years ago, continues to raise questions about following Jesus, being the church and doing God’s will. And it all takes place in the middle of the Cold War. Perhaps you read it years ago, or saw the film and might want to revisit this interesting and thought-provoking story. It is well written and an enjoyable read. |
Monday, December 7 - A Christmas Carol - by Charles Dickens
 We plan to make this another great experience of Charles Dickens’ celebration of Christmas. We will discuss this classic, read selected portions from it, and share some of our own personal Christmas stories, poetry, as well as Christmas stories derived elsewhere in literature. Once again we hope to make this meeting a real event “Dickens’ style” with cookies, cakes, puddings, and a few savories as well. |
Monday, January 4 - The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
 This book begins in January 1946, when popular author Juliet Ashton, much like her fellow British citizens, is emerging from the dark days of World War II. Seeking inspiration for a new book, she is surprised to receive an unexpected query from Dawsey Adams and soon she, and her readers, are caught in a delightful web of letters, vivid personalities and stories of the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands during WWII. |
Monday, February 1 - The Magic Bridge - by Herbert Bark
 Herbert Bark’s little book does much to put life in proper perspective as he recalls us to the simple trust of faith, to disciplines of meditation and holy listening. Inside Bark’s personal story, he weaves another story, a Russian fairy tale. Here’s a book that will add to the quality of your life, help you realize much about yourself, and invite you to discover God at work in it all.
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Monday, March 1 - Travels with Charley - by John Steinbeck
 The subtitle reveals that this is more than a travel story: it is the story of a journey “ In Search of America” John Steinbeck takes the reader on a journey, not just through America, but through a man’s soul. In order to rediscover a country he no longer identified with, and to reexamine his relationship with the land and its people, Steinbeck embarked on a road trip across the United States in September of 1960. With only a custom-
made pick-up truck named “Rocinante" in honor of Don Quixote's horse, and his faithful companion Charley, a standard French Poodle, he departed Sag Harbor in search of the America he had lost. |
Monday, April 5 - People of the Book - by Geraldine Brooks
 In her newest novel Brooks traces the journey of a rare illuminated Hebrew manuscript from Spain to Sarajevo, from the Silver Age of Venice to the sunburned rock faces of northern Australia. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with figurative paintings. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—she becomes determined to unlock the book’s mysteries. As Hanna seeks the counsel of scientists and specialists, the reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the mysterious volume’s journey from its creation to its salvation. |
Monday, May 3 - Paths of Glory - by Jeffrey Archer
 Here’s the story of a man with a dream, a life passion -- George Mallory. Born in 1886, he was a brilliant student who became part of the Bloomsbury Group at Cambridge in the early twentieth century and served in the Royal Garrison Artillery during World War I. After the war, he married, had three children, and would have spent the rest of his life as a schoolteacher, but for his love of mountain climbing. Mallory once told a reporter that he wanted to climb Mt. Everest "because it is there." On his third try in 1924, at age thirty-seven, he was last seen four hundred feet from the top. His body was found in 1999, and it remains a mystery whether he and his climbing partner, Andrew Irvine, ever reached the summit. |
Monday, June 7 - Home - by Marilynn Robinson
 Vast numbers of people were enthralled by the luminous voice of John Ames in Gilead, Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel. Her new work, Home, is an entirely independent, deeply affecting novel that takes place concurrently in the same locale as Gilead, this time in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames’s closest friend. Home is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. Some critics say that it is Robinson’s greatest work, an unforgettable embodiment of the deepest and most universal emotions. |
Page updated
February 5, 2010
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