Our library in Hewett Centre is open every Sunday after service during Coffee Hour in Hewett Centre, and our Library Team offers related reading lists based on the topic of Sunday service. Here is their list for the upcoming service featuring Rev. Shawn Gauthier on Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025 at 11 a.m. All are welcome in Hewett Centre after the Sunday service to check out some books and to have coffee and conversation.
VanU library books related to this Sunday’s sermon:
1. Community Organizing: Canadian Experiences, edited by Brian Wharf and Michael Clague, 1997, 361.250971 [Written by a UCV member. From LibraryThing: “Community Organizing: Canadian Experiences tells the story of community development in Canada, with the objective of determining lasting legacies and extracting lessons from the varied experiences.This edited volume has a number of objectives. First, it traces the beginnings of community organizing in Quebec and Anglophone Canada. Second, the book tells the stories of some of the significant initiatives from both community and state during the ‘heydey’ years – initiatives such as The Company of Young Canadians, Opportunities for Youth, and the Local Initiatives Program. Third, it describes some current initiatives like feminist organizing and the environmental movement, in an era of diminished and ever-decreasing resources. Fourth, the book attempts the ambitious task of identifying who participates in community organizing activities and analyses the early ‘heyday’ and current experiences in community organizing in order to extract lessons and identify legacies.”].
2. A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power, by Jimmy Carter, 2014, 323.34 CAR [From LibraryThing: “The world’s discrimination and violence against women and girls is the most serious, pervasive, and ignored violation of basic human rights: This is President Jimmy Carter’s call to action. President Carter was encouraged to write this book by a wide coalition of leaders of all faiths. His urgent report covers a system of discrimination that extends to every nation. Women are deprived of equal opportunity in wealthier nations and “owned” by men in others, forced to suffer servitude, child marriage, and genital cutting. The most vulnerable, along with their children, are trapped in war and violence. A Call to Action addresses the suffering inflicted upon women by a false interpretation of carefully selected religious texts and a growing tolerance of violence and warfare. Key verses are often omitted or quoted out of context by male religious leaders to exalt the status of men and exclude women. And in nations that accept or even glorify violence, this perceived inequality becomes the basis for abuse. President Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, have visited 145 countries, and The Carter Center has had active projects in more than half of them. Around the world, they have seen inequality rising rapidly with each passing decade. This is true in both rich and poor countries, and among the citizens within them. Carter draws upon his own experiences and the testimony of courageous women from all regions and all major religions to demonstrate that women around the world, more than half of all human beings, are being denied equal rights. This is an informed and passionate charge about a devastating effect on economic prosperity and unconscionable human suffering. It affects us all”].
3. We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work, by Jimmy Carter, 2009, 956.05 CAR [From LibraryThing: “Nobel Peace Laureate Jimmy Carter argues that the present moment is a unique time for achieving peace in the Middle East–and he offers a bold and comprehensive plan. For the last three decades, as President of the United States and as founder of The Carter Center, Carter has studied the complex and interrelated issues of the region’s conflicts and has been actively involved in reconciling them. He knows the leaders of all factions who will need to play key roles, and he sees encouraging signs. Carter describes the history of previous peace efforts and why they fell short. He argues persuasively that the road to a peace agreement is now open and that it has broad international and regional support. Most of all, since there will be no progress without courageous and sustained U.S. leadership, he says the time for progress is now, ….”].
4. Standing Before Us: Unitarian Universalist Women and Social Reform, 1776-1936, Edited by Dorothy May Emerson, June Edwards and Helene Knox, 1999, 261.8 EME [Published by Skinner House Books. From LibraryThing: “Letters, essays, stories, speeches & poems by women who were social reformers from 1776 to 1936.”].
5. Social Action Heroes: Unitarian Universalists Who Are Changing the World, by Michelle Bates Deakin, 2012, 261 DEA [Published by Skinner House Books. From Amazon: “Unitarian Universalists are committed to acting on important issues of social justice throughout the world. Award-winning journalist Michelle Bates Deakin explores the actions of eleven individuals and the impact their actions have had on their communities and their souls. Compelling and inspiring, Social Action Heroes illuminates the potential for deep change inherent in each of us, and in Unitarian Universalism as a whole.”].
6. These Live Tomorrow: Twenty Unitarian Universalist Biographies, by Clinton Lee Scott, 1964, 289.1 SCO [Published by Beacon Press. From AbeBooks: “… Brief biographies of those important to the history of the Unitarian – Universalist Church, … . Included are George de Benneville (1703-1793), John Murray (1741-1851, the founder of the Universalist Church in America), Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Rush, Hosea Ballou, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mary A. Livermore, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Starr King, Clara Barton and others, arranged chronologically. …”].
7. Men of Liberty: Ten Unitarian Pioneers, by Stephen Hole Fritchman, 1944, 920 FRI [Published by Beacon Press. From LibraryThing: “This inspiring book profiles ten influential Unitarians who played major roles in shaping American history. Fritchman explores the lives and achievements of men such as Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Ellery Channing, highlighting their contributions to the cause of social justice and religious freedom. …”].
8. Odysseys: The Lives of Sixteen Unitarian Universalist Ministers, by Alice Blair Wesley, 1992, 289.1 WES [From the UUA Bookstore. From Paperback Swap: “Odysseys is a collection of sixteen Unitarian Universalist ministers’ life and ministerial paths originally given as talks or “Odysseys” to their fellow ministers at professional retreats. Each story was a one to two hour talk that has been edited by each minister from taped transcripts and notes and compiled into book format by Alice Blair Wesley. …”].
9. A faith people make: Illustrated Unitarian Universalist lives, by Stephen Kendrick, 1997, 288 KEN.
10. A World of Ideas: Conversations With Thoughtful Men and Women About American Life Today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future, by Bill Moyers, 1989, 973.92 MOY [From the Julian Fears Library. From LibraryThing: “Interviews with Chinua Achebe, Isaac Asimov, Mary Catherine Bateson, Robert Bellah, Peter Berger, Sissela Bok, T. Berry Brazelton, James MacGregor Burns, Noam Chomsky, F. Forrester Church, Henry Steele Commager, E.L. Doctorow, Peter F. Drucker, Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris, Northrop Frye, Carlos Fuentes, Willard Gaylin, Mary Ann Glendon, Vartan Gregorian, Joseph Heller, Michael Josephson, Leon R. Kass, Sara Lightfoot, John Lukacs, Forrest McDonald, Arturo Madrid, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, Martha Nussbaum, Elaine Pagels, David Puttnam, John Searle, Maxine Singer, Barbara Tuchman, Derek Walcott, Steven Weinberg, August Wilson, William Julius Wilson, Tom Wolfe, Sheldon Wolin, Anne Wortham, C.N. Yang.”].
11. All We Want: Building the Life We Cannot Buy, by Michael Harris, 2021, 306 HAR [Gift of Mary Bennett. From LibraryThing: “Our lives are defined by a story of endless growth and consumption. Now a climate crisis demands that we change. Can we write new stories? In All We Want, award-winning author Michael Harris dismantles our untenable consumer culture and delivers surprising, heartwarming alternatives. Drawing on the wisdom of philosophers, scientists, and artists, Harris uncovers three realms where humans have always found deeper meaning: the worlds of Craft, the Sublime, and Care. Past attempts to blunt our impact on the environment have simply redirected our consumption–we bought fuel-efficient cars and canvas tote bags. We cannot, however, buy our way out of this crisis. We need, instead, compelling new stories about life’s purpose. Part meditation and part manifesto, All We Want is a blazing inquest into the destructive and unfulfilling promise of our consumer society, and a roadmap toward a more humane future.”].
12. How to Write and Deliver a Loving Eulogy, by Leo Seguin, 1998, 155.9 SEG [From LibraryThing: “When asked by family or friends to deliver a eulogy, there is usually very little time for planning. This book is designed as a guide to help you build and deliver a loving eulogy. It will provide, in a concise form, a vehicle of expression produced with empathy and compassion. The prose will be constructed from your own personal thoughts, your generous emotions, your caring hands, hands imbued with loyalty and worthy purpose (using our tools) you are a child of God. …”].