Zoom Book Club - Quaker Reading

Join us as we explore some novels, historical fiction and related storylines (not all fictional) that include a Quaker component.  The Book Club is a collaboration between several Quaker Meetings, but ALL are welcome.  Just send an email to ByberryQuakers@gmail.com requesting the log-in Meeting ID and password.

The Book Club meets on the 2nd Monday of each month.  Our next meeting is October 12th  at 7:00PM.  

October Book Club   (and Author Discussion)      

We are especially excited about the upcoming Zoom Book Club Discussion on
Monday, October 12th when we will be discussing "The Movement of Stars" by, and with, Amy Brill, the author.  

“Gorgeous . . . Sings with insights about love, work and how we create our own families”—Oprah.com


"It is 1845, and Hannah Gardner Price has lived all twenty-four years of her life according to the principles of the Nantucket Quaker community in which she was raised, where simplicity and restraint are valued above all, and a woman’s path is expected to lead to marriage and motherhood. But up on the rooftop each night, Hannah pursues a very different—and elusive—goal: discovering a comet and thereby winning a gold medal awarded by the King of Denmark, something unheard of for a woman.

And then she meets Isaac Martin, a young, dark-skinned whaler from the Azores who, like herself, has ambitions beyond his expected station in life. Drawn to his intellectual curiosity and honest manner, Hannah agrees to take Isaac on as a student. But when their shared interest in the stars develops into something deeper, Hannah’s standing in the community begins to unravel, challenging her most fundamental beliefs about work and love, and ultimately changing the course of her life forever.

Inspired by the work of Maria Mitchell, the first professional female astronomer in America, The Movement of Stars is a richly drawn portrait of desire and ambition in the face of adversity."

September's Book Club Selection:

"A Cord of Three Strands" - Christy Distler (a local Warrington author)  

Born to a French trader and a Lenape woman. Reared by Quakers. As the French & Indian War rages, one man strives for peace—between Pennsylvania and its Indian tribes, and between his own heart and mind.

As 1756 dawns, Isaac Lukens leaves the Pennsylvania wilderness after two years with the Lenape people. He’s failed to find the families of his birth parents, a French trader and a Lenape woman. Worse, the tribe he’s lived with, having rejected his peacemaking efforts, now ravages frontier settlements in retaliation. When he arrives in the Quaker community where he was reared, questions taunt him: Who is he—white man or Lenape? And where does he belong?

Elisabeth Alden, Isaac’s dearest childhood friend, is left to tend her young siblings alone upon her father’s death. Despite Isaac’s promise to care for her and the children, she battles resentment toward him for having left, while an unspeakable tragedy and her discordant courtship with a prominent Philadelphian weigh on her as well.

Elisabeth must marry or lose guardianship of her siblings, and her options threaten the life with her and the children that Isaac has come to love. Faced with Elisabeth’s hesitancy to marry, the prospect of finding his family at last, and the opportunity to assist in the peace process between Pennsylvania and its Indian tribes, Isaac must determine where—and to whom—the Almighty has called him.

A Cord of Three Strands weaves fact and fiction into a captivating portrayal of Colonial-era Quaker life, including Friends’ roles in Pennsylvania Indian relations and in refuting slavery.

 

PAST SELECTIONS

       The Invention of Wings - Sue Monk Kidd
       Friendly Persuasion - Jessamyn West (1850 to 1950ish - American Quaker farming family)
       The Cure for Dreaming - Cat Winters (young woman's efforts in the suffrage movement)
 

FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS:  

Considerations are:
        Silent Friends - A Quaker Quilt - Margaret Lacey
        Hannah Coulter - Wendell Berry  (Rec by Parker Palmer - not sure if there's a Quaker theme)
        Falling to Heaven - Jeanne Peterson  (2 Quaker Americans trek into Tibet)
        The Witch's Advocate - Richard Maule  (Quaker who advocates for Salem witches)
        Mary Dyer Illuminated - (One of the four Quaker Martyrs hanged in Boston in mid-1600s)
        World of Trouble: A Phila Quaker Family's Journey Through the American Revolution  (Drinker Family in Phila)
        Kendall Sparrow - Barbara Leutke  (1650 - Fictional stroy of Elizabeth Fletcher's convincement by George Fox)
         Seneca Falls Inheritance  (One in series of murder mysteries - this one takes place during the SF Convention).
        Through Gold Eagle (Seneca Falls Series - Story of John Brown, his funders, attack on Harper's Ferry).
        The Kitchen House (estate of a thriving plantation in Virginia in the decades before the Civil War).
        Glory Over Everything (twists and turns of the Underground RR - a mission to save a boy he swore to protect).
       


 

Future books may just come from this 2019 article

Most of the books should be available from a public library or other online source.  Should you wish to purchase, please consider FGC Quaker Books and then some of the online used books stores, such as:

Pendle Hill Books
FGC Quaker Books
ThriftBooks
AbeBooks


Books Requiring Additional Research
    Flight of the Sparrow 



PREVIOUS BOOK SELECTIONS:

MAY's BOOK CLUB SELECTION
[The Last Runaway - Tracy Chevalier]


Our first selection was:  "The Last Runaway" by Tracy Chevalier.  Chevalier sprang to fame with "The Girl with the Peal Earring", and has written 10 other best-sellers since that first novel.  "Tracy Chevalier makes her first fictional foray into the American past in The Last Runaway, bringing to life the Underground Railroad and illuminating the principles, passions and realities that fueled this extraordinary freedom movement" (Source: Goodreads.com).
 
Some discussion points may come from this link on her website -- https://www.tchevalier.com/reading-group-guide


JUNE'S BOOK CLUB SELECTION



"The Invention of Wings is voiced by two verbally powerful narrators: Sarah Grimké, who is inspired by the real-life abolitionist and feminist of the same name, and Hetty Handful, who is the child of your imagination. The Invention of Wings is about several simultaneous struggles for freedom."

"Are you looking to improve your knowledge of slavery in America within a non-academic setting? Sue Monk Kidd's latest novel, The Invention of Wings, offers just that with detailed depictions of the South and North during the early 19th century. Find out who would like this novel and why it is a worthwhile read with the help of this companion review. Kidd has selected two real women from America's history and fictionalized them as protagonists in her third novel.

Sarah Grimké comes from a wealthy white family and struggles with the justifications of slavery from the young age of 11. She befriends a slave named Handful who was presented to her as a gift, and together they form convictions and strive for freedom. Readers gain an insider's view of slavery, the abolitionist movement, and women's rights in The Invention of Wings. The New York Times bestselling author Sue Monk Kidd does not disappoint with her latest piece of historical fiction, and you can read what the critics have to say in this comprehensive review. The Invention of Wings offers an ideal balance of emotional moments and action to entice any reader, while offering educational appeal within an engaging story of two historical women." (Source:  GoodReads.com) 

About Sue Monk Kidd:  "Sue Monk Kidd's debut novel, The Secret Life of Bees, spent more than one hundred weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, has sold more than six million copies in the United States, was turned into both an award-winning major motion picture and a musical, and has been translated into thirty-six languages. Her second novel, The Mermaid Chair, was a number one New York Times bestseller and was adapted into a television movie. Her third novel, The Invention of Wings, an Oprah's Book Club 2.0 pick, was also a number one New York Times bestseller.

Her latest novel, The Book of Longings, will be available April 21, 2020.

She is the author of several acclaimed memoirs, including The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, her groundbreaking work on religion and feminism, as well as the New York Times bestseller Traveling with Pomegranates, written with her daughter, Ann Kidd Taylor. She lives in North Carolina."  (Source:  Amazon)