Join the SJB Book Club!
JOIN THE SJB BOOK CLUB!
Hello all Book Club Readers!
Here are the books that we will be reading in the next upcoming months! For those of you who are so busy, please remember this is not a monthly commitment. You do not have to attend regularly, just when YOU want! So, pick a book that you like, put the date on your calendar, and have a good read. If you don’t finish the book, join us anyway to see how it ends. If you don’t even read the book, but still want to join us for a meal – that sounds great too! We’d love you to join us!
A few additional things to keep in mind:
Not all the books we read are “Catholic or even Christian” related. This book club was started under the Fellowship Committee, so it was originally intended to be a social/fellowship event to bring people together.
We GENERALLY meet the 4th Mondays of each month.
Car-pooling is available from the St. John’s Church parking lot, leaving at 6:00 pm.
We rotate turns in choosing the monthly books and restaurant choices.
An RSVP e-mail will be sent to you before the discussion date. This determines how many will be car-pooling and how many to make restaurant reservations for.
We hope some of them sound very enticing to you! If you haven’t been to a discussion before, we encourage you to just give it a try. Happy Reading and we hopefully will see you at one or more of our upcoming discussions!
Please contact Mary Pekarna at 492-2753 or marypekarna@gmail.com, if you have any questions!
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Date: Monday, January 20, 2020
Location: McCoy’s Copper Pint - Shakopee
Chosen by: Jan Lennox
A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review).
Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by a longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into a wealthy and insular art community.
As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love -- and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.
The Goldfinch is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention. From the streets of New York to the dark corners of the art underworld, this "soaring masterpiece" examines the devastating impact of grief and the ruthless machinations of fate (Ron Charles, Washington Post).
And finally, listed are the books (and their summaries) that we will be reading from February - April 2020. So do not delete this e-mail. As you will notice, the tentative dates are already posted. Where we will meet is stated or is TBD.
Mistaken Identity by Don and Susie van Ryn; Newell, Colleen and Whitney Cerak; and Mark Tabb
Date: Monday, February 24, 2020
Location: TBD
Chosen by: Sue Malz
A grief reversed. A hope deferred. Mistaken Identity tells the unprecedented story of Laura Van Ryn and Whitney Cerak: one buried under the wrong name, and the other in a coma being cared for by the wrong family.
Five lives were lost in a tragic car accident, and the sole survivor was rushed to the hospital, where she remained in a coma for five weeks. Everyone believed that Laura Van Ryn was in a coma, and that Whitney Cerak had died in the crash—until Whitney woke up.
This shocking case of mistaken identity stunned the country and made national news. Would it destroy a family? Shatter their faith? Push two families into bitterness, resentment, and guilt? In Mistaken Identity, the Van Ryn family and the Cerek family describe their ordeal and explore the bond sustaining and uniting them as they deal with their bizarre reversal of life lost and life found.
Mistaken Identity weaves a complex tale of honesty, vulnerability, loss, hope, faith, and love in the face of one of the strangest twists of circumstances imaginable.
The Ruby Brooch by Katherine Lowry Logan
(Time Travel Romance) (The Celtic Brooch Series Book 1)
Date: Monday, March 23, 2020
Location: TBD
Chosen by: Jackie Wolf
You'll laugh, cry, and grip the edge of your seat in this ruby among garnets.
Heiress to the MacKlenna fortune, equestrian and paramedic, Kit MacKlenna, risks everything to discover her true identity. Was she really born in the 1800s?
As the sole survivor of the car crash that killed her parents, grief-stricken paramedic Kit MacKlenna is stunned to learn her life is built on lies. A legacy from her father includes a faded letter and a well-worn journal. The journal reveals she was abandoned as a baby 160 years ago. The only clues to her identity are a blood-splattered shawl, a locket with the portrait of a 19th-century man, and a Celtic brooch with magical powers. Kit decides to continue her father’s twenty-five-year search for her identity, and solve her birth parents’ murders.
Scotsman Cullen Montgomery, a San Francisco-bound lawyer who resembles the ghost who has haunted Kit since childhood, helps her join a wagon train heading West. More dangerous than the river crossings, bad water, and disease encountered on the trail, is Cullen’s determination to expose her lies and uncover the source of her unusual knowledge and life-saving powers.
Kit is convinced if she can survive the perilous journey and Cullen’s accusations, as well as thwart his attempts to seduce her, she might solve the mystery of her heritage and return home without leaving her heart on the other side of time.
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
Date: Monday, April 27, 2020
Location: TBD
Chosen by: Barbara Simon
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
“If you liked Where the Crawdads Sing, you’ll love This Tender Land...This story is as big-hearted as they come.” —Parade
A magnificent novel about four orphans on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression, from the bestselling author of Ordinary Grace.
1932, Minnesota—the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.
Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphans will journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.
PS: If you know of any additional friends who would like to be added to this e-mail or if anyone wants to be deleted, please let me know! Thanks!