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 the Sunday service. Here is their list for the upcoming service featuring Rev. Shawn Gauthier, Kiersten Moore and Janet Pivnick on Sunday, November 2, 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. 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. …”].
2. A Faith People Make: Illustrated Unitarian Universalist Lives, by Stephen Kendrick, 1988, 288 KEN [From LibraryThing: “… This work contains brief sketches of the lives of twenty Unitarians and Universalist. The profile of each person is proceeded by a page describing key events in his or her life. Included are such people as Joseph Priestley, discoverer or oxygen and other gases. Priestley was also a Unitarian minister. One of the most contemporary people profiled was Sophia Lyon Fahs. Fahs began her career with the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1937 when she developed a curriculum called the “New Beacon Series.” Fahs was ordained a Unitarian minister at the age of 82 and lived to be 102. …”].
3. Lotta and the Unitarian Service Committee Story, by Clyde Sanger, 1986, 921 HIT [From CM Archive: “… Lotta’s secure life in Prague was shattered by the war that left her homeless, and ultimately an orphan. In 1942 she arrived in Canada, and almost immediately started trying to alert Canadians to problems of European war victims. The USC, which she organized in Canada, started with European relief work and expanded to relief and rehabilitation programs in Korea, India, the Gaza strip, and Vietnam. Details of the successes and frustrations of Lotta’s efforts reveal a remarkably capable, persistent, and brave individual. … describing the recent shift in emphasis from small projects, with close personal contact, to larger integrated community development schemes. …”].
4. Call to Selma: Eighteen Days of Witness, by Richard D. Leonard, 2002, 323.1 LEO [Published by Skinner House Books publication. From Amazon: “In 1965 Rev. Martin Luther King appealed to clergy across the nation to come to Selma, Alabama, and join protestors in their struggle for voting rights. In all, more than 200 Unitarian Universalists responded, including about one-fifth of all Unitarian Universalist ministers. Reverend Richard Leonard, age 37, was Minister of education at the Community Church of New York at the time he answered Dr. King’s call. Leonard’s journal, along with the recollections of others who shared the journey, presents Selma as a pivotal point in the advancement of civil rights, and a defining moment for Unitarian Universalism. …”].
5. The BC Almanac Book of Greatest British Columbians, by Mark Forsythe and Greg Dickson, 2005, 920.0711 FOR [Gift of Arthur Hughes. Signed by the authors. From LibraryThing: “… Divided into such categories as Crusaders and Reformers, Scientists and Innovators and Rogues and Rascals, the book throws new light on such well-established names as David Suzuki, Emily Carr and Terry Fox. Equally intriguing are the “wildcard candidates,” including such little-known gems as the indomitable overlander Catherine Schubert and Fightin’ Joe Martin, one of BC’s shortest-lived premiers. Other highlights include Percy Williams, unlikely hero of the 1928 Olympics and pretender to the title of BC’s greatest athlete; gold rush jack-of-all-trades C.D. Hoy, who overcame racism to leave a photographic legacy; Joseph Leopold Coyle of Aldermere, inventor of the egg carton; and Lucille Johnstone, the secretary who rose to CEO in the testosterone-laden towboat industry.”].
6. The Greatest Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflections, by Tom Brokaw, 1999, 940.548 BRO [Large print book, in memory of Marguerite (Dee) Kelsey. The book pays affecting tribute to those who gave the world so much, and who left an enduring legacy of courage and conviction, with it collecting the vast outpouring of letters Brokaw received from men and women eager to share their intensely personal stories of a momentous time in America’s history. If we are to heed the past to prepare for the future, we should listen to these quiet voices of a generation that speaks to us of duty and honor, sacrifice and accomplishment].
7. 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. …”].
8. The Book of Hope, A Survival Guide for Trying Times, by Jane Goodall, 2021, 304 GOO [Jane Goodall, one of the world’s most famous naturalists, died on October 1, 2025. In this urgent book, Goodall and Douglas Abrams, the internationally bestselling co-author of The Book of Joy, explore through intimate and thought-provoking dialogue one of the most sought after and least understood elements of human nature: hope. In The Book of Hope, Jane focuses on her “Four Reasons for Hope”: The Amazing Human Intellect, The Resilience of Nature, The Power of Young People, and The Indomitable Human Spirit.]
9. Hiroshima: Memories of a Survivor, by Sachi Komura Rummel, 2018, 940 RUM [In 1945, the Japanese-born author Sachi Komura Rummel was 3.5 kilometres away from ground zero when the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima and killed much of the population and members of her family. As a survivor and now a Canadian citizen living in Squamish, 79-year-old Rummel describes her experience, one that lives on in the family histories and memories of Japanese people to this day. She writes to tell of the dangers of nuclear radiation, how terrible it is and how difficult it is to live after exposure, and to advocate for a world without nuclear weapons and nuclear war].
10. Invisible Influence: Claiming Canadian Unitarian and Universalist Women’s History, by Jean Pfleiderer et al, eds., 2011, 281.9 PFL [This book, resulting from an initiative by Kingston minister Rev. Kathy Sage, gathers essays on six hitherto “invisible” women who made important contributions to the development of the Unitarian and Universalist movement in Canada].
11. 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. Bill Moyers, an acclaimed journalist and award-winning host of several PBS programs, died on June 26, 2025. This book offers the chance to look back at the controversies of 1989 through his interviews, which gather the voices of prominent and prophetic figures in American life, mostly also now departed: Interviews include Chinua Achebe, Isaac Asimov, Mary Catherine Bateson, Robert Bellah, Peter Berger, …, Noam Chomsky, F. Forrester Church, Henry Steele Commager, E.L. Doctorow, Peter F. Drucker, …, Northrop Frye, …, Elaine Pagels, …, Steven Weinberg, …, August Wilson, William Julius Wilson, Tom Wolfe, …, C.N. Yang].