Library Book Club

We begin this year's Book Club schedule with something truly different. As a tie-in to Regent’s Movie on the Lawn showing of Wonder Woman on September 16, the Book Club is sponsoring a discussion on approaching the film from a Christian perspective. Dr. Pete Fraser, professor of film and literature, will lead our conversation.

Northanger Abbey depicts the misadventures of Catherine Morland, a young, indefatigable reader of gothic novels. The romantic tales and dark landscapes feed Catherine's imagination. What could be more exciting and remote from the uneventful securities of life in the midland counties of England? Yet as Austen brilliantly contrasts fiction with reality, ordinary life takes a more sinister turn, and edginess and circumspection are reaffirmed alongside comedy in Austen's most lighthearted work.

"This is a profound, realistic and hopeful book that reminds us that even in the darkest times the power of the gospel can change the world...No other writer I know offers such a rich background of astute cultural analysis combined with a deep understanding of history. I finished this book feeling a deep sense of hope, which was fortified by his powerful prayers at the end of each chapter. If we heed the wisdom in this marvelous book, we could well become effective agents for Christ for such a time as this." (Rebecca Manley Pippert, speaker and author of Hope Has Its Reasons)

"What was Merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon Merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?"Ebenezer Scrooge is miser who hates Christmas and all it stands for, but a ghostly visitor foretells three apparitions who will thaw Scrooge's frozen heart. A Christmas Carol has gripped the public imagination since it was first published in 1843, and it is now as much a part of Christmas as mistletoe or plum pudding.

Thomas Cahill guides us through a time so full of innovation that the Western world would not again experience its like until the twentieth century: the new humanism of the Renaissance and the radical religious alterations of the Reformation. In these exquisitely written and lavishly illustrated pages, Cahill illuminates, as no one else can, the great gift-givers who shaped our history--those who left us a world more varied and complex, more awesome and delightful, more beautiful and strong than the one they had found.

Few stories offer more warmth, wisdom, or generosity than this tale of two boys, their fathers, their friendship, and the chaotic times in which they live. In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, love, and the journey to adulthood. The intellectual and spiritual clashes between fathers, between each son and his own father, and between the two young men, provide a unique backdrop for this exploration of fathers, sons, faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love.

In this controversial New York Times bestseller, Rod Dreher calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life. The author argues that the way forward is actually the way back--all the way to St. Benedict of Nursia. This sixth-century monk, horrified by the moral chaos following Rome's fall, retreated to the forest and created a new way of life for Christians. He built enduring communities based on principles of order, hospitality, stability, and prayer. His spiritual centers of hope were strongholds of light throughout the Dark Ages and saved not just Christianity but Western civilization.