Book Club

A different book is discussed the first Wednesday of the month. Everyone is welcome to attend and join the discussion from 6:30-8 p.m. Please order books from the Cathedral Bookstore. Sessions will be in-person, with Zoom options available. Contact Louise Langford at [email protected] to learn how to participate.

Wednesday, February 1, 6:30 p.m.

Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship, by Catherine Raven

After receiving her PhD in biology, Raven lived in an isolated cottage in Montana, teaching remotely and leading field classes in Yellowstone National Park. Her only regular visitor was a fox, with whom she developed a friendship and from whom she learned about growth, loss, and belonging.

Wednesday, March 1, 6:30 p.m.

Practice of the Presence: A Revolutionary Translation, by Carmen Acevedo Butcher

A perennial classic since 1692, Brother Lawrence's book has continued to offer simple spiritual guidance for any situation. Now, award-winning translator Carmen Acevedo Butcher frees the text from wooden, patriarchal translations, bringing readers the opportunity to engage with Brother Lawrence's wisdom in a whole new way.

Wednesday, April 5, 6:30 p.m.

Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead

After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There--after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes--Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles.

A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian's disappearance in Antarctica. Vibrant, canny, disgusted with the claustrophobia of Hollywood, Hadley is eager to redefine herself after a romantic film franchise has imprisoned her in the grip of cult celebrity. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian's own story, as the two women's fates--and their hunger for self-determination in vastly different geographies and times--collide. Epic and emotional, meticulously researched and gloriously told, Great Circle is a monumental work of art, and a tremendous leap forward for the prodigiously gifted Maggie Shipstead.