Faith Formation

BookIt!

Join Millie Snyder for lunch and a literary smorgasbord. Together you will chew on the spiritual and moral dilemmas posed by this diverse literary sampling. This group meets monthly from September to May.

2021/2022 Reading List

September 9: Saving Ruby King, by Catherine Adel West

Set in the South Side of Chicago, an epic, enthralling story of a young woman determined to protect her best friend while a long-buried secret threatens to unravel both their families.

October 14: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years. 

November 18: Homeland Elegies, by Ayad Akhtar

A deeply personal work about hope and identity in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of belonging and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. 

December 16: The Shadow King, by Maaza Mengiste

A gripping novel set during Mussolini’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, The Shadow King takes us back to the first real conflict of World War II, casting light on the women soldiers who were left out of the historical record.

January 13: The Death of Vivek Oji, by Akwaeke Emezi

Propulsively readable, teeming with unforgettable characters, The Death of Vivek Oji is a novel of family and friendship that challenges expectations—a dramatic story of loss and transcendence that will move every reader.

February 10: The Stationery Shop of Tehran, Marjan Kamali

Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager living amid the political upheaval of 1953 Tehran, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri’s neighborhood stationery shop, stocked with books and pens and bottles of jewel-colored ink.

March 10: The Nature of Fragile Things, by Susan Meissner

April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed.

April 7: Shiner, by Amy Jo Burns

On a lush mountaintop trapped in time, two women vow to protect each other at all costs-and one young girl must defy her father to survive.

May 12: Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?