Jose Ferraz de Almeida Junior (1850, public domain)
Sunday afternoon, for priests, is often a time for rest (dare I say a nap?). On a rainy day, it’s a blessing to have the opportunity to spend time with family, take some time to work on a hobby, spend time with family, or curl up with a book. I confess that I have a great passion for reading – I will read fiction, memoirs, theology, history, travel literature, popular science – especially if it is about trees, plants or birds – and a wide variety of other things. I have a number of friends and family members who love to read as well and it is always nice to have someone to discuss the characters and the plot, the writing style, the reviews, and so on, about a book that one particularly enjoyed – or particularly didn’t enjoy – with other people. This is why I am grateful for the St. James Book Club. At the moment we are a small group but we are slowly growing and we have wonderful conversations. We meet on the fourth Tuesday of every month, except July and August, from 7:30 to 9:00 and we have read some excellent books. Our most recent reads have included All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr; Educated, by Tara Westover; and Washington Black by Esi Edugyen. For the summer, because we do not meet again until September, we have decided to read several works by the same author and we will discuss them as a body of work at our September meeting. This summer we are reading the works of Marilynne Robinson who wrote Housekeeping (1980); Gilead (2004); Home (2008); Lila (2014). It is up to each reader to choose how many and which of her novels to read. I’m looking forward to our discussion in September as I’ve enjoyed two of these novels so far.