Christ Church Book Club!
2011-2012

7:30pm, Third Tuesday of the Month (with one exception in November). An eclectic choice of various books, one main book or excerpt per evening along with reference to other books, for discussion and debate. Open to all and everyone! 1 hour. Where? Coronation Room, Christ Church Parish Hall, 7 Wentworth Street, Windsor, NS. Contact: David Curry 798-2454.

Dates: September 20th, October 18th, November 22nd, 2011,
January 17th and April 17th, 2012.

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 Charles Williams’ “Descent of the Dove” (available www.amazon.ca for $16.62/14.95) and Jaroslav Pelikan’s “Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture” (available from www.amazon.ca for $13.68) are two readable, accessible and excellent treatments of Christian Doctrine and Church History. Thoughtful and challenging, these works provide a way of thinking Jesus’ question, “Who do men say that I am? … Who do you say that I am?

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011. “Nomad” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali; “Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azir Nafisi (available on-line from www.amazon.ca ^[1] for $16.00 and $13.83, respectively). Both these books reflect on the difficulties and the confusions (on all sides) of the encounter between some of the political and cultural forms of Islam and some of the forms of modernity in the secular culture of the democratic west. Nafisi’s Reading Lolita (2003) illustrates the power of literature which is capable of providing a powerful self-critique of cultures and individuals so necessary to civilized life. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Nomad, a sequel to her book Infidel, is both a deeply personal account of her rejection of Islam and a cri de coeur for compassion and respect that, paradoxically, hints at the place for religion in the shaping of political culture.

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011. David Adams Richards’ acclaimed novel “Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul” (available from www.amazon.ca for $14.40) along with his equally acclaimed non- fiction work, “God Is” (available for $14.40) provide ample room for thought about the complexities of human redemption, the power and beauty of divine grace as well as the mysteries of human sin.

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012. David Hackett Fischer’s weighty tome, “Champlain’s Dream: The Visionary Adventurer Who Made a New World in Canada” (available from www.amazon.ca for $15.64) is a splendid and thoughtful read, a must-read, really, in terms of the confusions and conflicts about how to read the past. Breaking free from the stultifying and intellectually numbing restraints of political correctness, Fischer uncovers a much more fascinating and convincing account of a remarkable adventurer; a man of his time, no doubt, but with a view for the future and one which in so many ways we inhabit.

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012. Alan Jacobs’ “Reading for Pleasure in an Age of Distraction“ & Umberto Eco’s and Jean-Claude Carriere’s “This is Not the End of the Book” (available from www.amazon.ca for $15.85 and $20.06) catapult us into a more thoughtful and reflective view of the contemporary fascination with the digital world and what it means and doesn’t mean with respect to our reading and with respect to books.