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Newman Catholic Center at the University of Massachusetts

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The Newman Book Club

"Reading works of fiction by authors with catholic sensibilities."

1st Wednesdays (mostly) of the Month at 7:30pm in the Fr Quigley Rm.

Welcome to the Newman Book Club where we read works of fiction by authors with catholic sensibilities (we don't say 'Catholic authors' so we can work in the likes of C.S. Lewis et al.) The Book Club is open to everyone. No attendance is taken, no commitment needed other than to read the months selection and come ready to join in the discussion. Come whenever your schedule allows and curiosity is peeked.

Titles are selected by the group. Checkout the books selections for this year.

We read one book (or selection from a larger book, or collection of short stories) each month. We then gather on the 1st Wednesday of the following month to drink coffee or tea, eat pastries and, oh ya, talk about the book (you can always tell when Fr Doug is involved, there's food).

Purchase your books through by clicking on an Amazon.com link in this Website and Newman gets a percentage of the sale. It's a great way to help support Newman.

FALL 2009-Spring 2010 BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS
Date	Title	Notes: (1st Wednesdays of the month 7:30pm, The Fr Quigley Rm.)
Sep. 9th		*The Stories of J. F. Powers* J.F. Powers, who died in 1999, stands with Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, and Raymond Carver among the authors who have given the short story an unmistakably American cast. This month, we will be reading his short story Death of a Favorite, which is told from the perspective of the pastor's cat, Fritz, as he does battle with two missionary priests. Don't have the book? Then click here and read the story on line! N.B. second Wednesday this month
Oct. 7th		Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene In this later novel by Graham Greene the author continues to explore moral and theological dilemmas through psychologically astute character studies and exciting drama on an international stage. The title character of Monsignor Quixote is a village priest, elevated to the rank of monsignor through a clerical error, who travels to Madrid accompanied by his best friend, Sancho, the Communist ex-mayor of the village, in Greene’s lighthearted variation on Cervantes.
Nov. 4th		At Weddings and Wakes, by Alice McDermott Telling a story through the eyes of children is a tricky business. At Weddings and Wakes, Alice McDermott's engrossing portrayal of love and tragedy in an Irish-Catholic family, takes us along with the kids as they accompany their mother on weekly visits to a world of memory and recrimination in the family's old Brooklyn neighborhood. An exquisitely executed little novel that masks all its hard work and complex structure behind finely wrought lace curtains of craft.
Dec. 2nd		A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce The novel portrays the early years of Stephen Dedalus. Each of the novel's five sections is written in a third-person voice that reflects the age and emotional state of its protagonist, from the first childhood memories written in simple, childlike language to Stephen's final decision to leave Dublin for Paris to devote his life to art, written in abstruse, Latin-sprinkled, stream-of-consciousness prose. The work is the second part of Joyce's cycle of works chronicling the spiritual history of humans from Adam's Fall through the Redemption.
Jan. 6th		The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
Feb. 3rd		A Morbid Taste for Bones, by Ellis Peters Brother Cadfael travels to the remote Welsh mountain village of Gwytherin in order to acquire the relics of St. Winifred and finds himself in the middle of a bizarre mystery when the leading opponent to moving the bones is murdered. This is the first book in the Brother Cadfael series.
Mar. 3rd		The Great Divorce, by C. S. Lewis In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis's classic vision of the Afterworld, the narrator boards a bus on a drizzly English afternoon and embarks on an incredible voyage through Heaven and Hell. He meets a host of supernatural beings far removed from his expectations, and comes to some significant realizations about the nature of good and evil.
Apr. 7th		Love in the Ruins, by Walker Percy Dr. Tom More has created a stethoscope of the human spirit. With it, he embarks on an unforgettable odyssey to cure mankind's spiritual flu. This novel confronts both the value of life and its susceptibility to chance and ruin.
May 5th		Nine Stories, by J. D. Salinger The Stories: A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, Just Before the War with the Eskimos, The Laughing Man, Down at the Dinghy, For Esme -- With Love and Squalor, Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes, De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period, and Teddy.

A Brief History
Many 'Church' book clubs read theological classics and devotional books, but the Newman book club is different: we focus on fiction. Fr Doug got the idea while he was a student at UMass and heard Prof. Thomas Howard give a Newman Lecture entitled, "How to Speak of Glory: How Christian Authors get a Hearing in the Modern Age." Since then, Fr Doug has started Catholic Fiction Book Clubs at most of his assignments and many of them are still meeting.

You can find some of our past titles on the Book Club Selections section of
the Newman On-Line Store.

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Last update: Wed, 21 Jul 2010