The First Tuesday Book Club of the Unitarian Fellowship meets in the Fellowship Library at 7:30pm on the first Tuesday of each month. Here are the books we will be reading and discussing in the next 3 months. These books are available in paperback either at your local book store, online or at the Houston Public Library. All book lovers are welcome. Happy reading!
August 1, 2017
“The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” by Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century—1951—in the middle of the United States—Des Moines, Iowa—in the middle of the largest generation in American history—the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, he is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around his house and neighborhood with an old football jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing awful evildoers (and morons)—in his head—as “The Thunderbolt Kid.”
September 5, 2017
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby is set during the Roaring Twenties, in 1922 and tells the story of one man’s pursuit of the American Dream. The narrator, Nick Carraway, is an upper class American man who moves from the West to New York to try his luck as a bond trader. He meets an eccentric, exceptionally wealthy neighbor named Jay Gatsby, and becomes embroiled in Gatsby’s plan to rekindle a lost love with a woman named Daisy Buchanan, who happens to be Nick’s cousin.
October 3, 2017
“Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.
