Our New Read

Alecia has chosen our book for May.  We will be reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Here is an overview of what it is about.

Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive.

So pick up a copy at the local library.  We checked and made sure there are plenty of copies available.  Happy Reading!

Debby's Tuesday Teaser

"So where does this leave us? Why do I need this man at all? I need him only because I happen to adore him, because his company gives me gladness and comfort, and because, as a friend's grandfather once put it, "Sometimes life is too hard to be alone and sometimes life is too good to be alone."  The same goes for Felipe: He needs me only for my companionship as well.  Seems like a lot, but it isn't much at all; it is only love.  And a love based-marriage does not guarantee the lifelong binding contract of a clan-based marriage or an asset-based marriage; it cannot.  By unnerving definition, anything that the heart has chosen for its own mysterious reasons it can always unchoose later - again, for its own mysterious reasons."

page 80 Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert (a sequel to Eat, Pray, Love)

Our New Read!

Sudha has picked our next book.  We will be reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.  Here's an overview of what it is about:

In this humorous and perceptive exchange between two devils, C. S. Lewis delves into moral questions about good vs. evil, temptation, repentance, and grace. Through this wonderful tale, the reader emerges with a better understanding of what it means to live a faithful life.

So, pick up a copy at the local library and happy reading!

Our New Read

I have chosen the book for March.  We will be reading A Great And Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray.  Here is a little teaser summary:

Gemma, 16, is prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true.  She has had an unconventional upbringing in India, until the day she foresees her mother’s death in a black, swirling vision that turns out to be real. Sent back to England, she is enrolled at Spence, a girls’ academy with a mysterious burned-out East Wing. There Gemma is snubbed by powerful Felicity, beautiful Pippa, and even her own dumpy roommate Ann, until she blackmails herself and Ann into the treacherous clique. Gemma is distressed to find that she has been followed from India by Kartik, a beautiful young man who warns her to fight off the visions. Nevertheless, they continue, and one night she is led by a child-spirit to find a diary that reveals the secrets of a mystical Order. The clique soon finds a way to accompany Gemma to the other-world realms of her visions "for a bit of fun" and to taste the power they will never have as Victorian wives, but they discover that the delights of the realms are overwhelmed by a menace they cannot control.

So, pick up a copy at the library, borrow it from a friend, or you can purchase it on amazon for $9.99 if you think you'd like to add it to your collection.  Hope you all enjoy the book, I know I did.  Happy Reading!

Our New Read

Dari chose our book for February.  We will be reading The Chosen by Chaim Potok.  Here is a little description of what the book is about:

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, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, 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.

So, go to your local Library, borrow it from a friend, or if you feel like this is something you'd like to own you can purchase it on Amazon for $7.99 if you get the Mass Market Paperback edition, or $10.20 for the regular Paperback edition.  Happy reading!

Teaser Wednesday--The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

Rehnquist loved to sing, and he always led the caroling at the Court's annual Christmas party.  (Every year or so, a group of law clerks would write the chief justice an earnest letter complaining that the party created an atmosphere of exclusion for non-Christians; Rehnquist, who pointedly never adopted the term "holiday party," would reply by invititing the young lawyers, in effect, to get over it.)  In his early years on the Court, Rehnquist even sometimes wrote the sketches for the occassion.  In 1975, as Jeffrey Rosen first reported, he wrote a song about his least-favorite Supreme Court opinion, Miranda v. Arizona.  Sung to the tune of Angels from the Realms of Glory," it went: Liberals from the realms of theory should adorn our highest bench / Though to crooks they're always chary / At police misdeeds they blench."  The members of the chorus then fell to their knees and sang, "Save Miranda, save Miranda, save it from the Nixon Four."  Nixon's nominees were Warrent Burger, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, and of course, Rehnquist himself.

Debby's Tuesday Teaser

"Contrary to my legal training, I have come to realize that feelings are often more important than facts.  The law doesn't have much to do with feelings.  A feeling is rarely actionable or even admissible. But our most important decisions, though accompanied by a careful study of facts, are usually most immediately motivated by feelings.  Who we marry is an example.  What fact or facts, unaccompanied by feelings, would motivate that decision? 
Feelings are vital to the process of revelation.  In a talk, I listed eight purposes or functions of revelation.  They were testifying, prophesying, comforting, uplifting, informing, restraining, confirming, and impelling. Significantly, seven of these eight - all except informing - come as a feeling.  For example, we should always be prepared to act upon an impression when we "feel that it is right" (D&C 9:8), even though it is not justified by the facts."

From Life's Lessons Learned ~ Personal Reflections by Dallin H. Oaks