RevGalBookPals announces upcoming books!

Ask the Matriarch will resume next week. Until then, we announce the upcoming books that RGBP will be discussing. Purchase these from these links and RGBP will benefit. Check them out from your local library, and you will save a tree and increase the book circulation (which your local librarian will say THANKS!)

Folks, here are the upcoming books for our book discussion in the RGBP Amazon Store (notice the widget on the side? Yup, that's it!)

So.... here we go....

OCTOBER

October, we will discuss Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life
I don't know a soul who doesn't eat --- but how can we be better stewards of the food we eat and how can be love our neighbor as we do it? This book looks at food as we eat it today, with recipes to boot. Not only that, Kingsolver's husband looks at the food industry and its relationship with the government, along with one of Kingsolver's daughter, who shares her perspective to changing their eating habits to eat locally and seasonally. Mary Beth and Cathy will be leading the discussion.

NOVEMBER

November will bring the book Thirst: Poems by Mary Oliver - led by Diane of Faith in Community

A new chapter in Mary Oliver's illustrious career, this collection takes us inside the poet's grief and her discovery of faith Thirst, a collection of forty-three new poems from the Pulitzer Prize-winner Mary Oliver, introduces two new directions in the poet's work. Grappling with grief at the death of her beloved partner of over forty years, she strives to experience sorrow as a path to spiritual progress, grief as part of loving and not its end. And within these pages she chronicles for the first time her discovery of faith, without abandoning the love of the physical world that has been a hallmark of her work for four decades. In three stunning long poems, Oliver explores the dimensions and tests the parameters of religious doctrine, asking of being good, for example, "To what purpose? / Hope of Heaven? Not that. But to enter / the other kingdom: grace, and imagination, / and the multiple sympathies: to be as a leaf, a rose,/ a dolphin."

DECEMBER

As many of you know Madeleine L'engle recently passed away and entered into God's Kingdom. Many of you know her from her children's books, with the most notable being A Wrinkle in Time. We thought that a collection of her writings would be lovely during the month of December and the seasons Advent and during the Christmas season, so we will be discussing and reading Wintersong: Christmas Readings by L'Engle and her friend Luci Shaw. It will be led by Revhrod of You Don't Have to Listen, I Just Like to Talk.

JANUARY

We bring in the 2008 year in with Listening For God: A Ministers Journey Through Silence and Doubt by Renita Weems. Led by Mompriest of Seeking Authentic Voice.

Throughout the past two decades, Renita J. Weems has been noted and praised for her writing, galvanizing national speaking, and pioneering scholarship in the field of Old Testament studies. Yet in the midst of her celebrated work, she was experiencing a profound spiritual crisis permeated by a hollow, painful silence that seemed, at times, to mark an irreparable rupture in her communication with God.

In this deeply affecting book, Weems addresses the believer's yearning for God through periods of inconstancy, vacillation, and disenchantment. Her own spiritual disquietude will be familiar to all who struggle to maintain faith while the details of daily life -- negotiating with children and spouses, caring for ailing parents, living up to professional expectations, developing hobbies, managing finances, and planning for the future -- compete for energy with one's relationship with God. In sharing her own strategies for redefining mundane rituals so that they contribute to reverence and devotion, Weems offers a beacon of light for all believers struggling to listen for God amidst the din of worldly demands and distractions.


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Since Ask the Matriarch has taken a brief break this Thursday, I thought I would pose questions to you about the book discussions.

1. What books would you like to discuss in upcoming discussions?

There are several things we look at, accessibility and availability are certainly a priority, along with affordability.

2. Does your church have a book club or book discussion group? If so, what does the group read?

3. If we were to have a movie discussion, what movies would you like to discuss? Those already on DVD or the ones just released?