Coordinator: Riley Johnson
Purpose: Our primary purpose is to have a fun and engaging discussion about the book selected for the month.
Responsibilities: Everyone is invited to participate. We select the books for the year by voting at our November meeting. Titles may include fiction and nonfiction. The only condition is that the recommended books must be in print and readily available. The member who makes the recommendation becomes the discussion leader if that book is selected.
Meeting Place and Time: Currently, meetings are held at 6:30 PM on ZOOM on the last Sunday of the month. https://zoom.us/my/emilyuucv
Contact: Riley Johnson riles1806@gmail.com
2022 Book picks
January – The UUCV Book Discussion group meets via Zoom on the 4th Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm. Dates and titles can be found on our website: https://uucv.org/fellowship/book-group/ . Please join us for a lively discussion, newcomers are always welcome!
The selection for January 23rd is “You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism” by Lacey Lamar and Amber Ruffin. You may recognize Amber Ruffin from Late Night with Seth Meyers, but her sister Lacey still lives in their home state of Nebraska. Lacey’s experiences with racism are told through hilarious banter between the two sisters, making this book engaging and informative.
Please email Pam at UUCV (pmartin@uucv.org) or the Book Discussion coordinator, Riley Johnson (riles1806@gmail.com) if you have any questions.
February – The UUCV Book Discussion group meets via Zoom on the 4th Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm. Dates and titles can be found on our website: https://uucv.org/fellowship/book-group/ . Please join us for a lively discussion, newcomers are always welcome!
The selection for February 27th is “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis” by Timothy Egan. Charismatic and passionate, Edward Curtis has been hailed as a visionary for his dedication to photographing Native Americans and documenting their experiences before their way of life was destroyed. This book explores a body of work including more than 40,000 photographs, 10,000 audio recordings, and what is considered to be the first narrative documentary film. It also explores the man who produced it, and what drove him to do so.
Please email Pam at UUCV (pmartin@uucv.org) or the Book Discussion coordinator, Riley Johnson (riles1806@gmail.com) if you have any questions.
March – The UUCV Book Discussion group meets via Zoom on the 4th Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm. Dates and titles can be found on our website: https://uucv.org/fellowship/book-group/ . Please join us for a lively discussion, newcomers are always welcome!
The selection for March 27th is “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Set in post WWII Barcelona, this novel follows the son of an antique book dealer as he sets out to find the works of Julian Calax. As he searches he realizes Calax’s books are being systematically destroyed, but he doesn’t know why or by whom. What begins as a simple quest leads him to a far deeper, darker place than he’d expected…
Please email Pam at UUCV (pmartin@uucv.org) or the Book Discussion coordinator, Riley Johnson (riles1806@gmail.com) if you have any questions.
April – The UUCV Book Discussion group meets via Zoom on the 4th Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm. Dates and titles can be found on our website: https://uucv.org/fellowship/book-group/ . Please join us for a lively discussion, newcomers are always welcome!
The selection for April 24th is “Midnight’s Children” by Salman Rushdie. At the stroke of midnight on the night of India’s independence, 1,001 children were born with the new nation – each of them with unique, extraordinary talents. This highly acclaimed novel tells the story of one of these children, Saleem Sinai, and his family against the backdrop of a new country finding its way.
Please email Pam at UUCV (pmartin@uucv.org) or the Book Discussion coordinator, Riley Johnson (riles1806@gmail.com) if you have any questions.
May – The UUCV Book Discussion group meets via Zoom on the 4th Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm. Dates and titles can be found on our website: https://uucv.org/fellowship/book-group/ . Please join us for a lively discussion, newcomers are always welcome!
The selection for May 22nd is “Defund Fear: Safety Without Policing, Prisons, and Punishment” by Zach Norris. Chosen as the UUA’s Common Read for 2022, this visionary thinker grapples with the question of how to keep our communities safe without the current criminal justice structure that tears apart our most vulnerable families.
Please email Pam at UUCV (pmartin@uucv.org) or the Book Discussion coordinator, Riley Johnson (riles1806@gmail.com) if you have any questions.
June – The UUCV Book Discussion group meets via Zoom on the 4th Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm. Dates and titles can be found on our website: https://uucv.org/fellowship/book-group/ . Please join us for a lively discussion, newcomers are always welcome!
The selection for June 26th is “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century” by Jessica Bruder. Now a critically acclaimed film, this peek behind the dark curtain of American capitalism shows us an entire community of people living in RV’s and vans, traveling the country in search of a better life. Bruder’s exploration also hints at the unsettling future that could be ahead for more people as the effects of the Great Recession continue to ripple.
Please email Pam at UUCV (pmartin@uucv.org) or the Book Discussion coordinator, Riley Johnson (riles1806@gmail.com) if you have any questions.
July – The UUCV Book Discussion group meets via Zoom on the 4th Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm. Dates and titles can be found on our website: https://uucv.org/fellowship/book-group/ . Please join us for a lively discussion, newcomers are always welcome!
The selection for July 24th is “Before We Were Yours” by Lisa Wingate. Based on the horrific true story of Georgia Tann using a Memphis orphanage to abduct and sell children, this story bounces between the past, where 12 year old Rill struggles to keep her four younger siblings with her after they’re taken from their parents, and present day, where a chance encounter leads wealthy lawyer Avery Stafford on a journey into her family’s history.
Please email Pam at UUCV (pmartin@uucv.org) or the Book Discussion coordinator, Riley Johnson (riles1806@gmail.com) if you have any questions.
August – The UUCV Book Discussion group meets via Zoom on the 4th Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm. Dates and titles can be found on our website: https://uucv.org/fellowship/book-group/ . Please join us for a lively discussion, newcomers are always welcome!
The selection for August 28th is “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller. Set in Ancient Greece, this book introduces readers to an unparalleled young warrior and a young prince in exile who would eventually become legends. Their relationship grows as they are trained in the arts of war, but no amount of time in the practice ring could prepare them for what the Trojan War would mean for the both of them.
Please email Pam at UUCV (pmartin@uucv.org) or the Book Discussion coordinator, Riley Johnson (riles1806@gmail.com) if you have any questions.
September – The UUCV Book Discussion group meets via Zoom on the 4th Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm. Dates and titles can be found on our website: https://uucv.org/fellowship/book-group/ . Please join us for a lively discussion, newcomers are always welcome!
The selection for September 25th is “Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law” by Mary Roach. In the not-too-distant past, animals who broke the law were given an attorney and tried in a court of law. Given her wit and her familiarity with the bizarre, Mary Roach is the perfect tour guide on a journey from leopards attacking villages in the Himalayas to gulls destroying the floral arrangements at Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square, exploring the question of how humans and animals can coexist.
Please email Pam at UUCV (pmartin@uucv.org) or the Book Discussion coordinator, Riley Johnson (riles1806@gmail.com) if you have any questions.
October – The UUCV Book Discussion group meets via Zoom on the 4th Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm. Dates and titles can be found on our website: https://uucv.org/fellowship/book-group/ . Please join us for a lively discussion, newcomers are always welcome!
The selection for October 23rd is “The Sentence” by Louise Erdrich. Set in a Minneapolis bookstore, this latest work from a master storyteller is a ghost story beginning on All Souls’ Day 2019. Tookie has recently been released from prison, and landed a job selling books. A frustrating customer, Flora, dies and refuses to leave the store. Can Tookie figure out why Flora’s haunting the place? Can any of us work through the grief of the year following All Souls’ Day 2019?
Please email Pam at UUCV (pmartin@uucv.org) or the Book Discussion coordinator, Riley Johnson (riles1806@gmail.com) if you have any questions.
2021 Book Picks
February 28th – As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock
March 28th – Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In
April 25th – The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
May 23rd – No Friends But The Mountains: Dispatches from the World’s Violent Highlands
June 27th – Seeking Sound Judgement
July 25th – The Machine Never Blinks: A Graphic History of Spying and Surveillance
August 22nd – Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
September 26th – Between the World and Me
October 24th – Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America
2020 Book Picks
January 26: “Say Nothing: A
True Story of
Murder and
Memory” in
Northern Ireland
By: Patrick R. Keefe
February 23: “The Invention of Wings”
by Sue Monk Kidd
Pythagoras’ Trousers: God, Physics and the Gender War 
Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880
Limonov: The Outrageous Adventures of the Radical Soviet Poet Who Became a Bum in New York, a Sensation in France, and a Political Antihero in Russia
The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age
Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men
Educated: A Memoir
The Hate U Give
Leonardo Da Vinci
The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine
