The OLOS Book Group meets one Sunday afternoon a month, from 2:30-3:30 p.m. via Zoom. For the link, contact Monica LaFond at mlafond@olossharon.org.
We discuss books that broadly deal with spiritual or religious themes, including a mixture of fiction, spirituality, memoir and biography.
All are welcome. We spend a few minutes at the beginning of each meeting introducing ourselves, so if you haven't come before, don't be shy! New faces are always welcome.
November 24, 2024 - The Company of Women by Mary Gordon
December 22, 2024 - Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
January 26, 2025 - While I Breathe, I Hope: A Mystagogy of Dying by Richard Gaillardetz
February 23, 2025 - When God Wrecks Your Romance: Orthodox Faith, Unorthodox Story by Amanda Vernon and Matt Fase, CSC
March 23, 2025 - Saving My Assassin: A Memoir (The True Story of a Christian Attorney’s Battle for Religious Liberty in Romania) by Virginia Prodan
April 27, 2025 - Come Forth: The Promise of Jesus’s Greatest Miracle by James Martin
May 18, 2025 - Absolution by Alice McDermott
June 29, 2025 - In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger
July 27, 2025 - Rumi’s Little Book of Life: The Garden of the Soul, the Heart, and the Spirit by Rumi (translated by Maryam Mafi and Azima Melita Kolin)
August 24, 2025 - How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by Harrison Scott Key
September 28, 2025 - The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos
October 26, 2025 - The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross by Scott Hahn
July 2023-June 2024
Monastery Mornings: My Unusual Boyhood Among the Saints and Monks by Michael Patrick O’Brien
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
The Measure by Nikki Erlick
The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming by Henri Nouwen
No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) by Kate Bowler
Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain
The Evil That Surrounds Us: The Diary of Erna Becker-Kohen, edited and translated by Fr. Kevin P. Spicer and Martina Cucchiara (in person, with Fr. Kevin joining us as guest speaker)
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
Home Made: A Story of Grief, Groceries, Showing Up–and What We Make When We Make Dinner by Liz Hauck
Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional by Isaac Fitzgerald
Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality by Ron Rolheiser
The Way of Trust and Love: A Retreat Guided by St Therese of Lisieux by Fr. Jacques Philippe
2022-2023
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, by Tracy Kidder
The Our Father: A New Reading by Gerhard Lohfink
The Abbey: A Story of Discovery by James Martin, S.J.
The Smile of a Ragpicker: The Life of Satako Kitahara - Convert and Servant of the Slums of Tokyo by Fr. Paul Glynn
Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone by James Martin, S.J.
The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad
River of Fire by Sister Helen Prejean
Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship by Gregory Boyle
My Sisters the Saints: A Spiritual Memoir by Colleen Carroll Campbell
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith by Timothy Egan
2021-2022
Jesus: A Pilgrimage, by James Martin, S.J.
At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life by Fenton Johnson
The Time is Now: A Call to Uncommon Courage by Joan Chittister, O.S.B.
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo
The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi
The Road of Hope: A Gospel from Prison by Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan
Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as a Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Teacher, Way, and Presence by Diana Butler Bass
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
2020-2021
Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departed by Bronnie Ware
Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine by Max Lucado
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin and “Previous Condition”, a short story by James Baldwin. The entire short story is available here and the full 30 minute audiobook version of the short story is here. The Fire Next Time is available from Amazon and other booksellers.
Hieroglyphics by Jill McCorkle
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr
This Child of Faith: Raising a Spiritual Child in a Secular World by Sophfronia Scott and Tain Gregory
The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection
A Prayer Journal, Flannery O’Connor
An Infinity of Little Hours, Nancy Klein Mcguire
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Kreuger