The Sparrow

Author:  Mary Doria Russell
Facilitator:  Father Daniel Ruff, S.J.
Book Price:  $13.46*
ISBN:  0-449-91255-8
Meeting Dates:  All meetings are on Friday except where noted.  Time: 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. in Jenkins Hall 115.  Dates: October 5, 11 (Thur), 19, 26; November 2 and 9.

 In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question the meaning of being “human.” When the lone survivor of the expedition, Emilio Sandoz, returns to Earth in 2059, he will try to explain what went wrong. Words like “provocative” and “compelling” will come to mind as you read this shocking novel about first contact with a race that creates music akin to both poetry and prayer. (From Amazon.com)

Singing Away the Hunger: The Autobiography of an African Woman

Author:  Mpho Matsepo Nthunya
Facilitator:  Candra Healy
Book Price:  $13.46*
ISBN:  0-253-21162-X

The implausible memoir is from a woman who experienced extreme adversity, suffering the loss of six children and her husband and then struggling to support her remaining family as a domestic worker. It is the narrative of a woman with a primary school education who speaks eight languages and once had a prosperous farm. Nthunya is also a storyteller, relating how her mother was expected to marry someone her father selected for her, thereby collecting a bride-price. But her mother prayed that she would die, only to have her father and husband-to-be pass away instead. Telling the true story of her own life through the pen of a white South African woman, Nthunya’s autobiography is a powerful read that draws you into the life and choices of this spiritually mature woman. (From Amazon.com)

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Author:  Anne Fadiman
Facilitator:  Emily Rauer Davis
Book Price:  $13.50*
ISBN:  0-374-52564-1
Meeting Dates:  All meetings are on Friday.  Time: 12 - 1 p.m. Location to be determined, please check back for updates.  Dates: October 5, 12, 19, 26; November 2 and 9. 

 When three-month-old Lia Lee arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents or her doctors would ever recover. Lia’s parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run “Quiet War” in Laos. When Lia Lee entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication. Lia’s doctors ascribed her seizures to the misfiring of her cerebral neurons; her parents called her illness, quag dab peg- - the spirit catches you and you fall down- - and ascribed it to the wandering of her soul. The doctors prescribed anticonvulsants; her parents preferred animal sacrifices. (From Amazon.com)

“Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity

Author:  Beverly Daniel Tatum
Facilitator:  Martha Wharton
Book Price:  $14.36*
ISBN:  0-465-08361-7
Meeting Dates:  All meetings are on Thursday.  Time: 1 - 2 p.m. Dates and locations are: October 4 in Jenkins Hall 115, October 11, 18, 25 in Xavier Hall 102; November 1 in Jenkins Hall 115 and November 8 in Xavier Hall 102.

Beverly Tatum, a developmental psychologist with a special interest in the emerging field of racial-identity development, has served as a consultant to school systems and community groups on teaching and learning in a multicultural context. Not only has she studied the distinctive social dynamics faced by black youth educated in predominantly white environments, but since 1980, Tatum has developed a course on the psychology of racism and taught it in a variety of university settings. She is also a black woman and a concern mother of two, and she draws on all these experiences and bases of knowledge to write a remarkably jargon-free book that is rigorously analytical as it is refreshingly practical and drives its point home with a range of telling anecdotes. Tatum illuminates “why talking about racism is so hard” and what we can do to make it easier, leaving her readers more confident about facing the difficult terrain on the road to a genuinely color-blind society. (From Kirkus Associates)

A History of God

Author: Karen Armstrong
Facilitator: Joseph Healy
Book Price: $14.36*
ISBN: 0-345-38456-3
Meeting Dates:  All meetings are on Tuesday.  Time: 1 - 2 p.m. in Jenkins Hall 115. Dates: October 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 and November 6.  

Why does God exist? How have the three dominant monotheistic religions-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-shaped and altered the conception of God? How have these religions influenced each other? While Karen Armstrong, an outstanding British scholar, addresses the three major monotheistic religions, we will add two readings on Hinduism’s and Buddhism’s search for answers. (From Joseph Healy, International Programs)