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 on Sunday, November 23, 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. The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy & Liberation, by Thich Nhat Hanh, 1999, 294 NHA [From Amazon: “With poetry and clarity, Thich Nhat Hanh imparts comforting wisdom about the nature of suffering and its role in creating compassion, love, and joy – all qualities of enlightenment.”].
2. Don’t Label Me: How to Do Diversity Without Inflaming the Culture Wars, by Irshad Manji, 2020, 306.44 [Gift of Mary Bennett. From LibraryThing: “… shows that America’s founding genius is diversity of thought. Which is why social justice activists won’t win by labeling those who disagree with them. At a time when minorities are fast becoming the majority, a truly new America requires a new way to tribe out.”].
3. Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, by Viktor E. Frankl, 1984, 150.19 FRA [The Julian Fears Library. From LibraryThing: “… Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl’s theory – known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos (“meaning”) – holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful. …”].
4. Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea, by Mark Kurlansky, 2008, 303.61 KUR [From LibraryThing: “… discusses nonviolence as a distinct entity, a course of action, rather than a mere state of mind. Nonviolence can and should be a technique for overcoming social injustice and ending wars, he asserts, which is why it is the preferred method of those who speak truth to power. Nonviolence is a sweeping yet concise history that moves from ancient Hindu times to present-day conflicts raging in the Middle East and elsewhere. Kurlansky also brings into focus just why nonviolence is a “dangerous” idea, and asks such provocative questions as: Is there such a thing as a “just war”? Could nonviolence have worked against even the most evil regimes in history? Kurlansky draws from history twenty-five provocative lessons on the subject that we can use to effect change today. He shows how, time and again, violence is used to suppress nonviolence and its practitioners-Gandhi and Martin Luther King, for example; that the stated deterrence value of standing national armies and huge weapons arsenals is, at best, negligible; and, encouragingly, that much of the hard work necessary to begin a movement to end war is already complete. It simply needs to be embraced and accelerated. …”].
5. Rites of Spring: The Great War And The Birth Of The Modern Age, by Modris Eksteins, 2002, 909.82 EKS [From LibraryThing: “… probes the origins, impact, and aftermath of World War I, from the premiere of Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring in 1913 to the death of Hitler in 1945. “The Great War,” as Modris Eksteins writes, “was the psychological turning point . . . for modernism as a whole. The urge to create and the urge to destroy had changed places. “Eksteins goes on to chart the seismic shifts in human consciousness brought about by this great cataclysm through the lives and words of ordinary people, works of literature, and such events as Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight and the publication of the first modern bestseller, All Quiet on the Western Front. …”].
6. None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948, by Irving M Abella, 1982, 940.53 ABE [Gift of Barbara Taylor. From LibraryThing: “… between the years 1933 and 1948, when the Jews of Europe were looking for a place of refuge from Nazi persecution, Canada refused to offer aid, let alone sanctuary, to those in fear for their lives. … trace the origins and results of Canadian immigration policies towards Jews and conclusively demonstrate that the forces against admitting them were pervasive and rooted in antisemitism. … fortieth anniversary edition celebrates the book’s ongoing impact on public discourse, generating debate on ethics and morality in government, the workings of Canadian immigration and refugee policy, the responsibility of bystanders, righting historical wrongs, and the historian as witness. Above all, the reader is asked: “What kind of Canada do we want to be?” …”].
7. Gandhi’s Truth, by Erik H. Erikson, 1969, 921 GAN [From LibraryThing: “… psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson explores how Gandhi succeeded in mobilizing the Indian people both spiritually and politically as he became the revolutionary innovator of militant non-violence and India became the motherland of large-scale civil disobedience.”].
8. The Warrior’s Honour, by Michael Ignatieff, 1998, 174.44 IGN [Gift of Harold Douglas Brown. From LibraryThing: “… charts the rise of the new moral interventionists – the aid workers, reporters, peacekeepers, Red Cross delegates, and diplomats – who believe that other people’s misery, no matter how far away, is of concern to us all. He brings us face to face with the new ethnic warriors-the warlords, gunmen, and paramilitaries-who have escalated post-modern war to an unprecedented level of savagery. And he draws, from the encounter of these two groups, dramatic and startling realisations about the ambiguous ethics of engagement, the limited force of moral justice in a world of war, and the inevitable clash between those who defend tribal and national loyalties and those who speak the universalist language of human rights. …”].
9. Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, by Malka Drucker and Gay Block, 1992, 940.53 BLO [From LibraryThing: “… visiting 105 rescuers from ten countries. … inviting us to look at these men and women as they are today, people whose faces resemble our own. Would we act as they did? In their own words, forty-nine of the rescuers present a vivid picture of their lives before, during, and after the war as they grapple with the question of why they acted with humanity in a time of barbarism and whether they would do it again. Their stories – infused with the deep memory that engages a terrible past – are unforgettable. Louisa Steenstra relives the Nazis’ murder of her husband and of the Jews they were hiding in their attic in the Netherlands; Antonin Kalina of Czechoslovakia relates how he deceived the SS to save 1,300 children in Buchenwald. Others recall how they smuggled Jews out of the ghettos; worked in resistance movements; forged passports and baptismal certificates; hid Jews in cellars, barns, and behind false walls; shared their meager food rations; secretly disposed of waste; and raised Jewish children as their own. … a vital contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust, of the complex factors that made some people refuse the role of passive bystander, and of the profound psychological and ethical issues that still perplex us. When asked about the prospects for acts of moral courage today, rescuer Liliane Gaffney told the authors: “It’s very difficult for a generation raised looking out for Number One to understand it. This is something totally unknown here. But there, if you didn’t live for others as well as yourself it wasn’t worth living.” For Jan Karski, however, the legacy of the rescuers is one of affirmation: “Do not lose hope in humanity.” … perhaps most striking about the rescuers is their modesty and simple humanness; yet, as Cynthia Ozick concludes in the Prologue, “It is from these undeniably heroic and principled few that we can learn the full resonance of civilization.””].
10. The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace, by Howard Zinn, 2002, 327.17 WEI [Beacon Press publication. From LibraryThing, the book jacket: “… first anthology of alternatives to war with a historical perspective – with an introduction by Howard Zinn about September 11 and the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks – presents the most salient and persuasive arguments for peace in the last 2,500 years of human history. Arranged chronologically, covering the major conflagrations in the world. … a compelling step forward in the study of pacifism, a timely anthology that fills a void for people looking for responses to crisis that are not based on guns or bombs.”].
11. The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map, by Ursula Franklin, 2006, 303.66 FRA [From LibraryThing: “… demonstrates subtle, yet critical, linkages across a range of subjects: the pursuit of peace and social justice, theology, feminism, environmental protection, education, government, and citizen activism. This thoughtful collection, drawn from more than four decades of research and teaching, brings readers into an intimate discussion with Franklin, and makes a passionate case for how to build a society centered around peace.”].
12. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker, 2012, 303.609 PIN [From LibraryThing, the publisher description: “We’ve all asked, “… cognitive scientist Steven Pinker shows that the past was much worse. Evidence of a bloody history has always been around us: genocides in the Old Testament, gory mutilations in Shakespeare and Grimm, monarchs who beheaded their relatives, and American founders who dueled with their rivals. The murder rate in medieval Europe was more than thirty times what it is today. Slavery, sadistic punishments, and frivolous executions were common features of life for millennia, then were suddenly abolished. How could this have happened, if human nature has not changed? Pinker argues that thanks to the spread of government, literacy, trade, and cosmopolitanism, we increasingly control our impulses, empathize with others, debunk toxic ideologies, and deploy our powers of reason to reduce the temptations of violence.”].