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Newman Community
The Newman Book Club
"Reading works of fiction by authors with catholic sensibilities."
1st Wednesdays of the Month (mostly) at 7:30pm in the Fr Quigley Rm.
This Month's Selection
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 2007-Spring 2008 BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS | | Date | Title | Notes: (1st Wednesdays of the month 7:30pm, The Fr Quigley Rm.) | | Sep. 5th |   | Don't freak out!
We're not reading the whole Silmarillion (has anyone?).
We will read just the first book Ainulindale which is actually the Creation Story according to Tolkien. It is very short, only 10 pages.
If you're looking for a copy of the story, contact Fr Doug | | Oct. 3rd |  | Lewis' Space Trilogy, of which Out of the Silent Planet is the first volume, stands along side Albert Camus's Plague and George Orwell's 1984 as a timely parable that has become timeless, beloved as much for the sheer wonder of its storytelling as for the significance of the moral concerns. The central character, the brilliant, clear-eyed, and fiercely brave philologist Dr. Elwin Ransom is apparently modeled after Lewis' dear friend, J.R.R. Tolkien! | | Nov. 14th* |   | A thrilling apocalyptic novel about the conditions of the Roman Catholic Church at the end of time. It explores the state of the modern world, and the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary religious scene, by taking the central character, Fr. Elijah Schäfer, a Carmelite priest, on a secret mission for the Vatican which embroils him in a series of crises and subterfuges affecting the ultimate destiny of the Church.
*Note: 2nd Wednesday of the month. | | Dec. 5th |   | What is the What is the story of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee of the Sudanese civil war. Fleeing from his village in the mid-1980's, Deng becomes one of the so called Lost Boys - children pursued by militias, government soldiers, lions and hyenas and myriad diseases, in their search for sanctuary, first in Ethiopia and then Kenya. Eventually Deng is resettled in the United States with almost 4000 other young Sudanese men, and a very different struggle begins. | | Jan. 2nd |   | This now-classic collection of short stories revealed Flannery O'Connor to be one of the most original and provocative writers to emerge from the South. Her apocalyptic vision of life is expressed through grotesque, often comic, situations in which the principal character faces a problem of salvation.
This is the second time the Book Club will be reading from this book. The three short stories we will focus on this time are: The Late Encounter with the Enemy, Good Country People & The Displaced Person. | | Feb. 13th* |   | McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, a frightening apocalyptic vision, is narrated by a nameless man, one of the few survivors of an unspecified civilization-ending catastrophe. He and his young son are trekking along a treacherous highway, starving and freezing, trying to avoid roving cannibal armies. The tale, and their lives, are saved from teetering over the edge of bleakness thanks to the man's fierce belief that they are "the good guys" who are preserving the light of humanity.
* 2nd Wednesday in February... Feb. 6th being Ash Wednesday | | Mar. 5th |   | This tale of two princesses - one beautiful and one unattractive - and of the struggle between sacred and profane love is Lewis's reworking of the myth of Cupid and Psyche and one of his most enduring works. | Apr. 2nd
| | McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, a frightening apocalyptic vision, is narrated by a nameless man, one of the few survivors of an unspecified civilization-ending catastrophe. He and his young son are trekking along a treacherous highway, starving and freezing, trying to avoid roving cannibal armies. The tale, and their lives, are saved from teetering over the edge of bleakness thanks to the man's fierce belief that they are "the good guys" who are preserving the light of humanity.
author of "No Country For Old Men"
(originally scheduled for Feb. Postponed due to a snow storm) | | May 7th |   | In his penetrating novel Graham Greene explores corruption and atonement through a priest and the people he encounters. In the 1930s one Mexican state has outlawed the Church. The priests have been rounded up and shot by firing squad--save one, the whisky priest. On the run, an adamant lieutenant is only a few hours behind, determined to liberate his country from the evils of the church. On the verge of reaching a safer region, the whisky priest is repeatedly held back by his vocation, even though he no longer feels fit to perform his rites. | 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
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Last update: Wed, 23 Apr 2008
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