Get Ready to Read and Join Us for Discussion!
Our book group will be reading an exciting variety of fiction and non-fiction this year. Join us for any or all of these discussions. We will have our meetings at UUCM after church on second Sundays at 12:30 PM in the Channing Room. You are welcome to bring a snack or lunch to these meetings. We will also offer the option of joining by Zoom, but please give at least 1 week’s notice so we make sure to have equipment ready to welcome you.
Upcoming Selections
September 14, 2025: Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, 1949, 240 pages
Through science, history, humor and prose, Leopold uses A Sand County Almanac and its call for a land ethic to communicate the true connection between people and the natural world. The hope: that readers will begin to treat the land with the love and respect that it deserves.
Presenter is Jo W.
October 12, 2025: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hossein, 2002, 384 pages
This powerful novel set in Afghanistan, follows the lives of two women, Mariam and Laila, over several decades. The story explores themes of love, loss, family, and resilience against the backdrop of war and political upheaval, particularly under Soviet and Taliban rule. It highlights the strength of female friendship and the enduring power of hope in the face of adversity.
Presenter is Jo W.
November 9, 2025: The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich, 2024, 384 pages
A novel of tender humor, disquietude, yearning, community, and family, it is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. Human time, deep time, Red River time, and geological time are explored alongside the impact of crises in our own time—climate change, the depletion of natural resources, the economic meltdown of 2008. It is a story about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendor.
Presenter is Theresa H.
Past Selections
August 10, 2025: Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward, 2024, 336 pages
Written by two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward, Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.
Presenter is Maureen M.
July 13, 2025: James by Percival Everett, 2024, 303 pages (Pulitzer Prize Winner 2025)
A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
Presenter is Jo W.
June 8, 2025: James by Percival Everett, 2024, 303 pages (Pulitzer Prize Winner 2025)
(Due to scheduling conflicts, the group did not meet to discuss this selection in June. They postponed their discussion to July’s meeting.)
May 11, 2025: Poetry RX by Norman E. Rosenthal, 2021, 380 pages
This fascinating book explores the concept of poetry as a healing modality, coupled with poignant bio regarding renowned poets from global backgrounds across the centuries and infused with current vignettes from contemporary issues. This is one of several books I would bring to a desert island.
Presenter is Judith G.
April 13, 2025: Gretel and The Great War by Adan Ehrlich Sach, 2024, 224 pages
A young girl wanders the streets of Vienna following the Great War. She does not speak. A neurologist concludes the girl has no exposure to language and writes her story for a medical journal, but gets a letter from a sanitarium patient who says he is wrong. The writer is the young girls father and sends along a collection of 26 bedtime stories to tell her of the times in Vienna.
Presenter is Theresa H.
The Book Group did not meet in March to make space for Cottage Meetings held by the Stewardship Team.
February 9, 2025: Such Kindness by Andre Dubus III, 2023, 336 pages
A working class man has a terrible fall. In constant pain and addicted to pain pills, he struggles to figure out who he is and who he will become. Dubus brings compassion with an edge of dark absurdity, forging a novel as absorbing as it is profound. Keith Johnson
Presenter is Keith J.
January 12, 2025: I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger, 2024, 386 pages. This book is based on the myth of Orpheus, the musician who traveled to the underworld to rescue his wife, but it’s set in an all-too-possible future. I chose to read this book because I love the author’s way with words. Had I known it was “dystopian” I might have had second thoughts, so I am glad I didn’t know. But, it is so much more than that! Beautiful writing, yes, and also engaging characters, a bit of an adventure story, a poignant description of living with grief and a complete refusal to give in to despair. It strikes me as a rather UU book in its determination to see the world as it is while centering on love, connection and hope, with the belief they will ultimately prevail.
Presenter is Cheryl M.
Meeting in person in the UUCM Channing Room
and on Zoom
2nd Sundays at 12:30pm
To ensure we have equipment set up to welcome you, please provide at least one week’s notice if you’ll be joining via Zoom.
Click to Join Zoom Meeting
or Join by phone: (669) 900-9128
Meeting ID: 927 1111 8322 #
Passcode: 472984
For questions, please contact Books@uugrassvalley.org.